Do Medical Health Ministers Make Different Health System Choices?

ABSTRACT Healthcare decision‐making is a highly specialized domain of government, particularly at the central or federal level, which may partly explain why medical professionals are sometimes appointed to ministerial roles within government cabinets. However, does a minister with medical expertise in healthcare make a difference in the outcomes and outputs of a health system? We examine original data on the medical doctor (MD) backgrounds of health ministers in Western countries to disentangle these effects. Drawing on longitudinal evidence from a long panel of OECD countries over 21 years, and a differences in differences design we find that, although MD ministers do not increase overall healthcare spending, they do engage in some level of strategic budget reallocation by spending 11%–14% more on preventative care such as vaccines, irrespective of political leanings, though results are weaker under coalition governments. Notably, we find some evidence that MD ministers reduce overall mortality and increase the density of physicians in European Union (EU) countries and nurses in small countries.