Does free supplementary health insurance help the poor to access health care? [electronic resource]

The French government introduced a "free supplementary health insurance plan" in 2000, which covers most of the out-of-pocket payments faced by the poorest 10% of French residents. This plan was designed to help the non-elderly poor to access health care. To assess the impact of the introduction of the plan on its beneficiaries, we use a longitudinal dataset to compare, for the same individual, the evolution of his/her expenditures before and …