Effect of having private health insurance on the use of health care services: the case of Spain.

<bold>Background: </bold>Several stakeholders have undertaken initiatives to propose solutions towards a more sustainable health system and Spain, as an example of a European country affected by austerity measures, is looking for ways to cut healthcare budgets.<bold>Methods: </bold>The aim of this paper is to study the effect of private health insurance on health care utilization using the latest micro-data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), the Spanish National Health Survey (SNHS) and the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). We use matching techniques based on propensity score methods: single match, four matches, bias-adjustment and allowing for heteroskedasticity.<bold>Results: </bold>The results demonstrate that people with a private health insurance, use the public health system less than individuals without double health insurance coverage.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Our conclusions are useful when policy makers design public-private partnership policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]