The impact of social health insurance on rural populations.

摘要: Improving health outcomes of rural populations in low- and middle-income countries represents a significant challenge. A key part this is ensuring access to services protecting households from financial risk caused by unaffordable medical care. In 2003, China introduced heavily subsidised voluntary social insurance programme that aimed provide 800 million residents with curb impoverishment. This paper provides new evidence on the impact scheme care utilisation expenditure. Given nature enrolment, we exploit uneven roll-out across counties as natural experiment explore causal inference. We find little effect use formal out-of-pocket payments. However, there it directed people away informal towards village clinics, especially among patients lower income. The has also led reduction city hospitals rich. shift clinics higher-level suggests NRCMS potential improve efficiency within system help obtain less costly primary poor quality insufficient coverage for outpatient remains concern.