Willingness to Pay to Improve Quality of Public Healthcare Services in Mauritius

Abstract

Mauritius has a universal free healthcare system, based on the Beveridge model which is financed by taxpayers. There are growing considerations over improving quality of healthcare services. The purpose of the study is to employ a contingency valuation (CV) to investigate the willingness of Mauritians people to pay to improve the quality of public healthcare services and the associated determinants using the double-bounded dichotomous choice model. A drop off survey with a sample size of 974 respondents from the working population is used. The empirical analysis shows that the majority of the sample was willing to pay for improving quality of public healthcare services. Other than the conventional determinants of respondents’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, the findings support the assertion that psycho-social constructs such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour, Norm-Activation, Public Good Theory, and Perceived Response Efficacy are found to significantly affect Willingness-to-Pay (WTP). The results of this study might be of use to policymakers to help with both priority setting and fund allocation.