Objective: The current study examines whether public and private health care utilization switching occurs in periods of inflation, and secondly to investigate the role of inflation on illness/injury, prevalence of health insurance coverage, cost of health care in both public as well as private health care. Method: The research design used secondary data from the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica. The current study used 2 decades of statistics on inflation, expenditure on health care (public-private utilization), self-reported illness/injury, and annual prevalence of health insurance coverage. Results: Over the past 2 decades [1988-2007] there has been a narrowing of public and private health care utilization in Jamaica. On examination of aforementioned issues, we found that inflation accounted for some of this lowered gap. Another interesting finding is the direct association between inflation and injury/illness, and inflation is inversely correlated with prevalence of health insurance coverage. Conclusion: Jamaicans have a preference for the utilization for private health care than public health care services. Despite this preference, persistent increases in the inflation rate, economic recession in America, lowered remittances, increasing costing on ‘food and beverage’ and ‘meats and poultry’, increased fuel bills are causing a substitution to public health care utilization