Never will I give advice till you please to ask me thrice: Estimating willingness to pay for health insurance using 3 different methods with evidence from Iran

Abstract

Objective: The current study was aimed at providing a monetary assessment of households' preferences for basic and complementary health insurance based on willing to pay for health insurance coverage. Method: The open-ended (OE), take-it-or-leave-it (TIOLI), and double-bounded dichotomous choice (DBDC) methods of contingent valuation (CV) were compared in calculating the participants' willingness to pay (WTP) for joining health insurance coverage. The data for the current study were taken from 2 equivalent samples of households. Results: The (trimmed) mean of monthly WTP per person for basic health insurance coverage elicited by the OE, TIOLI, and DBDC methods was respectively US$ 4.01, US$ 6.2, and US$ 5.5. Moreover, the (trimmed) mean of monthly WTP per person for complementary health insurance elicited by the OE, TIOLI, and DBDC methods was respectively US$ 4.6, US$ 9.8, and US$ 8. Conclusions: The results indicated a significant value difference in the various CV approaches. The findings suggest that the TIOLI, OE, and DBDC can be used as an upper bounded, a lower bounded, and a median value respectively. The findings also suggest that the choice of different CV approaches is needed to estimate a boundary of WTP for health insurance plans as a more reliable estimate of stated preference of health insurance.