NSW Hospitals: are they pro-rich or pro-poor?

Given concerns about ever increasing government health spending and the distributional impact of such spending, this paper aims to improve our understanding of health inequalities in the NSW hospitals system. We are drawing upon a unique patient based dataset that includes all separations and their associated cost from NSW hospitals over the four year period to 1999-00, with the socioeconomic status of patients imputed onto it. We first examine whether the average cost of treating patients changes in line with variations in their socioeconomic status. Coronary heart disease is then separately examined as a case study. This analysis considers the use of public and private sector hospitals by individuals and also distinguishes between public and private patients treated in public hospitals.