A year or so ago I was visiting at a doctor’s house and the conversation turned to the status of his practice. I was a bit surprised to hear that it wasn’t doing so well. Appointments were noticeably down and the office had to let a staff member or two go.
I was surprised because I assumed that health care (along with funeral homes and the like) would be a largely recession-proof industry. People keep getting sick and must see a doctor.
[My hunch that health care demand is inelastic likely stems from the fact that I’m reluctant to see the doctor unless I really need to do it.]
A study released earlier this year (link to actual paper [.pdf]) reveals that the recession has not only affected my neighborly doctor but the industry as a whole:
The economic crisis in the United States has reduced the use of routine medical care, and the cutbacks here are much deeper than in countries with universal health care systems, researchers say in a new report.
. . .
Among Americans responding to the survey, they said, 26.5 percent reported reducing their use of routine medical care since the start of the global economic crisis in 2007.
Not surprisingly, these cutbacks are far deeper than consumers have made in countries that have universal health care:
This proportion dwarfs the comparable numbers for other countries: 5.3 percent in Canada, 7.6 percent in Britain, 10.3 percent in Germany and 12 percent in France.
. . .
Cutbacks were generally correlated with the size of out-of-pocket costs, the researchers found. The proportion of people reporting reductions in routine care was smaller in Britain and Canada, where the co-payments are lower, than in France and Germany, where somewhat larger co-payments are required.
People living where there is a bigger safety net live more safely in turbulent times.
At any rate it’s another example of how the recession has impacted everyone. OK, maybe not the morgue.