Estimating rural households? willingness to pay for health insurance

Abstract

In many developing countries limited health budgets are a serious problem. Innovative ways to raise funds for the provision of health services, for example, through health care insurance, have a high priority. Health care insurance for rural households shields such patients from unexpected high costs of care. However, there are questions about whether, and how much, rural households are willing to pay to purchase such insurance, as well as the factors determining willingness to pay. In recent years the Iranian government has tried to improve health and medical services to rural areas through a health insurance program. This study was conducted to estimate rural households' demand and willingness to pay for health insurance. A contingent valuation method (CVM) was applied using an iterative bidding game technique. Data has been collected from a sample of 2,139 households across the country.

Willingness to Pay For Community Based Health Care Financing Scheme: A Comparative Study among Rural and Urban Households in Osun State, Nigeria

“…Some studies have shown that marital status influences the behavior of individuals towards health services 31 which also is in line with the finding from this study. The rural households (82.8%) were more willing to pay for community based health care financing than the urban households (61.6%), this was found to be statistically significant.…”

“…25 Majority of urban household heads were civil servants (36.7%) while farming was the major occupation in the rural households (53.6%).Almost all the household heads were earning income monthly with mean income for urban heads to be ₦ 42± 5,200 and ₦10± 5,300 for rural heads as compared with a study in Enugu where majority of household heads were employed in Local Government jobs and others were into farming and the average household income was ₦10,141.20k per month for rural households. 19 The average household size was 4±2.2 for urban households and 5± 3.3 for rural households which is similar to result from a study in Ilorin North Central where household size average was 5.0± 2.7 31 and also the Nigeria demographic and health survey where the mean household size for urban households was 4.1 and 4.6 for rural households. 25 Only about half (52.0%) of the urban households were willing to pay for community based health care financing scheme as compared to the majority (83.0%) of rural households willing to pay for community based health care financing scheme.…”

“…In this study the median WTP for health insurance is the equivalent of 15 US Dollars per household per month .11 In rural Iran, the finding was that households are willing to pay three US Dollars per household per month on the average . 12 In a similar study on WTP for a school based chemotherapy program in Tanzania, greater than seventy percent had WTP greater than 1.25 United States Dollars. 13 In the survey five percent of respondents were not willing to pay any money for the scheme;twenty-five percent of the respondents were willing to pay between 0.1 and 1.24 US Dollars while 70% were willing to pay 1.25 US Dollars and above.…”

Willingness to pay for excreta pellet fertilizer: Empirical evidence from Ghana

“…Aged farmers may not see the need for long term sustainability of soil fertility and may be conservative to new ideas hence may show negative attitude towards the faecal sludge fertilizer. On the other hand, as they grow much older, they may become more experienced thereby willing to conserve the soil through the use of excreta pellets and hence positively influencing their WTP decision (Tessema & Holden 2006;Asgary et al, 2004;Dong et al, 2003).…”

Health insurance and access to health care services in developing countries

“…Yet, there is an on-going debate on the relative advantages of different forms of health insurance (Asgary et al, 2004, Oxfam, 2008, ILO, 2008a. The purposes of health financing are to mobilise resources for the health system, to set the right financial incentives for providers, and to ensure that all individuals have access to effective health care.…”