Abstract

Objectives

To investigate patient preferences for health insurance plans covering newer type 2 diabetes treatments when equity is considered.

Methods

A discrete choice experiment with 701 patients with type 2 diabetes tested 2 experimental conditions: (1) personal health outcomes only (experiment 1) and (2) equal health outcomes for self and other patients with poorer health (experiment 2). Preferences were estimated using latent-class logit models in willingness-to-pay (WTP) space.

Results

Two distinct classes emerged under each experimental condition. In experiment 1, a “Risk-Averse” class (68.6%) displayed high WTP for a 1-percentage-point improvement in efficacy ($26.06, P .01) and was insensitive to risk ($0.03, P = .98). Older respondents tended to align with cost-sensitive classes, whereas those with childcare responsibilities were more likely to belong to risk averse/equity-concerned classes.

Conclusions

Patients exhibited strong preferences for treatment efficacy, risk aversion, and varying levels of cost sensitivity. However, risk tolerance increased when equity was considered.