Money for health: the equivalent variation of cardiovascular diseases

Health Economics
Wim GrootErik Plug

Abstract

This paper introduces a new method to calculate the extent to which individuals are willing to trade money for improvements in their health status. An individual welfare function of income (WFI) is applied to calculate the equivalent income variation of health impairments. We believe that this approach avoids various drawbacks of alternative willingness-to-pay methods. The WFI is used to calculate the equivalent variation of cardiovascular diseases. It is found that for a 25 year old male the equivalent variation of a heart disease ranges from 114,000 euro to 380,000 euro depending on the welfare level. This is about 10,000 euro - 30,000 euro for an additional life year. The equivalent variation declines with age and is about the same for men and women. The estimates further vary by discount rate chosen. The estimates of the equivalent variation are generally higher than the money spent on most heart-related medical interventions per QALY. The cost-benefit analysis shows that for most interventions the value of the health benefits exceeds the costs. Heart transplants seem to be too costly and only beneficial if patients are young.

Citations

Oct 1, 2009·The European Journal of Health Economics : HEPAC : Health Economics in Prevention and Care·Ricardo Pagán-Rodríguez
Jun 27, 2008·BMC Health Services Research·Wim Groot, Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink
Jan 1, 2009·Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization·Arie KapteynArthur van Soest
Dec 9, 2008·Social Science & Medicine·Nattavudh Powdthavee
Oct 27, 2016·The European Journal of Health Economics : HEPAC : Health Economics in Prevention and Care·Olivier ChanelUNKNOWN Aphekom group
Jul 1, 2011·Journal of Health Economics·Nattavudh Powdthavee, Bernard van den Berg
Mar 1, 2007·Perspectives on Psychological Science : a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science·Paul Dolan, Mathew P White
Apr 15, 2006·Health Economics·Wim Groot, Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink

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