Measuring public priorities for insurable health care

The goal of this research was to develop and evaluate a way to measure the value people place on various medical services in their decisions about what health insurance should cover. A vignette approach to measuring consumer values was developed. People were asked to assign priority and desire to have insurance cover 64 different services. A national probability sample of 206 adults was interviewed by telephone. Their ratings were compared with those of a sample of 47 corporate benefits officers of Fortune 500 companies. Priorities were not significantly associated with respondent characteristics. They were positively correlated with independent assessments of the seriousness of the patient's condition and the likely efficacy of the services. Priorities and desire to cover were virtually the same when respondents were asked about insurance for a low-income population as for a general population. Two-thirds of the ratings of the public were the same as those of benefit officers. The public gave higher ratings than benefits officers to long-term care and services to relieve worries, and the public gave lower ratings to the value of treatment of substance abuse and services when the patient could be viewed as at fault. This pilot test indicates this is an efficient, feasible, useful strategy for measuring the extent to which people value various medical services that could contribute to the process of making decisions about health insurance coverage.