Benefit distribution of social health insurance: evidence from china’s urban resident basic medical insurance

Abstract

Equity is one of the essential objectives of the social health insurance. This article evaluates the benefit distribution of the China's Urban Residents' Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI), covering 300 million urban populations. Using the URBMI Household Survey data fielded between 2007 and 2011, we estimate the benefit distribution by the two-part model, and find that the URBMI beneficiaries from lower income groups benefited less than that of higher income groups. In other words, government subsidy that was supposed to promote the universal coverage of health care flew more to the rich. Our study provides new evidence on China's health insurance system reform, and it bears meaningful policy implication for other developing countries facing similar challenges on the way to universal coverage of health insurance.

The status of medication literacy and associated factors of hypertensive patients in China: a cross-sectional study

“…Among the hypertensive patients with different medical insurance types, the knowledge level of hypertensive patients with urban workers' medical insurance was the highest, Referring to "without medical insurance" as dumb variable: I1 = Medical insurance for urban workers (1, 0, 0, 0), I2 = Medical insurance for urban residents (0, 1, 0, 0), I3 = New rural cooperative medical insurance (0, 0, 1, 0), I4 = others (0, 0, 0, 1) History of hypertension < 3 years = 1; 3-4 years = 2; 5-9 years = 3; ≥ 10 years = 4 Family history of hypertension Yes = 1; no = 2 Hypertension complication Yes = 1; no = 2 Kinds of antihypertensive medication being taken 1 or below = 1; 2-3 kinds = 2; 4 or above = 3 followed by the new rural cooperative medical insurance and urban residents' medical insurance, and the knowledge level of hypertensive patients without medical insurance was the lowest. The results of multiple linear regression analysis also show that the type of medical insurance is one of the factors affecting the knowledge level of hypertension patients, which may be because patients with urban residents' medical insurance have better economic conditions [34][35][36]. Furthermore, due to better medical reimbursement in such two kinds of medical insurance, patients may take less concern of medical expenses and focus mainly on their disease.…”

China's Health Reform Update

“…Given that Urban Employee Insurance is more likely to cover outpatient services than Rural Resident Insurance is (28) (9,88), urban areas and wealthier families continue to benefit disproportionately from insurance subsidies because urban insurance plans provide substantively more coverage (10,28,54).…”

Research Review on Equity in Basic Medical Insurance

“…(2016) used the survey data of urban residents' medical insurance households from 2007 to 2011, and estimated the income distribution by using two models to find that the income of low-and middle-income groups is low [14]. In the case of high-income groups, in other words, government subsidies that should promote universal health insurance flow more to the rich.…”