ABSTRACT
Controversy over the desirability of cost sharing in health insurance policies has simmered for decades and has occasionally boiled over, in part because of the meagre quantitative evidence about the effects of cost sharing on the demand for services and on patients’ health status. The limited information available prompted the federal government to sponsor a controlled trial, which will end in early 1982. Results concerning the effects on health are not yet available; only interim results about the use of services are available.
