Microsimulation Modelling On Health Benefit Schemes And Their Substainability
by
Anil Gupta
Health Canada
Coauthors: Loan Nguyen

Effectiveness and cost issues have recently generated a need for changes in the program elements of certain Canadian Federal health benefit programs targeting special populations such as aboriginal peoples. To compare and contrast proposed changes, we developed a Microsimulation modelling tool to assess the distributional impacts of public health policy changes on federal expenditures on an underprivileged population. This presentation discusses the development of a Microsimulation model based on a sophisticated synthesis of individual-level data. The required database was created by merging two large complex administrative claim data systems and then simulating non-claimants to obtain a list of all eligible clients of that population with individual and family-level data. A Monte Carlo technique was used to impute some demographic information to further enhance this synthesized database. The Microsimulation model incorporates existing and hypothetical health benefit programs to identify policy options that optimize benefits for the population in question while minimizing cost. The flexibility and generality of this robust tool are illustrated in the context of a specific federal health benefit program for an underprivileged Canadian population, but the model could easily be generalized to underprivileged populations in other countries such as Australia, Brazil or the US.

Date received: April 12, 2008

Copyright © 2008 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caxa-47.