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As the US pursues health care reform, it is important to understand the patterns in demand for, and opposition to, public provision of medical treatments. Using data from a nationally representative survey, we develop and estimate a utility-theoretic choice model to quantify demand for publicly provided medical treatment policies. We find diminishing marginal utility for increased recoveries and avoided premature deaths. We also show how the utility associated with different types of treatment policies varies with the socio-demographic group that would benefit (e.g. men, women, children, and seniors) and the program's duration and scope. Our model further permits utility, and hence willingness to pay, to vary with each respondent's own gender, age, race, income, community ethnic fractionalization and immigrant composition, as well as the respondent's expected private benefits from the policy and attitude toward government interventions and overall health care funding allocations. Self-interest is a prevailing finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using a national survey and a discrete choice experiment format, we estimate demand for environmental polices to improve health. We use a richly detailed community-level approach that describes illnesses avoided, premature deaths avoided, policy duration, and the affected population size. We allow preferences for policy attributes to vary systematically with the scenario design, with the source of risk and type of health threat, and with respondent characteristics. Using a willingness to pay (WTP) framework similar to that used for studies of individual risk, we find that omission of illness information leads to an upward bias in estimates of the value of avoided premature deaths and that individuals view avoided deaths and avoided illnesses as substitutes. We also find evidence of strongly diminishing marginal utility in policy scope. Differences in marginal WTP from different sources of risk or types of illness appear very small relative to differences associated with respondent characteristics and/or perceptions. Self-interest strongly dominates altruistic considerations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]