Abstract

«Moral-hazard» affects welfare systems and also National Health Systems so cost-sharing is one of the tools that can be used to limit it. Italy has changed its policies about pharmaceutical ticket in three steps: moderate ticket, elimination of it and reintroduction of cost sharing with differences region by region. Using Italian data for pharmaceutical ticket, provided by Osmed, we exploit a series of natural experiments referring to several different costsharing introduction policies from 1999 to 2011. In this way we have found some evidence confirming literature and other critical points about a costsharing policy. Moreover we compare the various paths followed by Italian regions to face the problem. We build a sort of benchmark which could help to understand weak and strong points in the ticket policy chosen by every region as well as draw some empirical evidence.