‘Keeping up with the Joneses?’ Private health insurance as a consumption good?

This chapter explores the debate about health care consumption further, on the basis of findings from a study which has recently been undertaken regarding the decision to subscribe to private health insurance and the decision to use it. Each of the issues is important in that it gives clues to the social weight and value placed on private health insurance as perceived by the respondents and, thereby, the extent to which it may be defined as a consumption good. Perceptions of the value placed on private health insurance is, according to this evidence, clearly shaped by whether the respondent is personally a subscriber or not. The importance of individual responsibility, choice, and personal control, a value placed on both competition and home ownership and the constraining influence of the state were key elements in this set of ideological beliefs.