Are the poor too poor to demand health insurance?

Rajeev Ahuja () and Johannes Jutting
Additional contact information
Rajeev Ahuja: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations
Johannes Jutting: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations

Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi Working Papers from Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi, India

Abstract: Community based micro insurance has aroused much interest and hope in meeting health care challenges facing the poor. In this paper we explore how institutional rigidities such as credit constraint impinge on demand for health insurance and how insurance could potentially prevent poor households from fallinginto poverty trap. In this setting, we argue that the appropriate public intervention in generating demand for insurance is not to subsidise premium but to remove these rigidities (easing credit constraint in the present context). Thus from insurance perspective as well, our analysis highlights the importance of having appropriate savings and borrowing instruments for the poor.

Keywords: Micro-insurance; Micro-credit; Credit Constraint; Demand for Insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 Pages
Date: 2004-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.icrier.org/pdf/wp118.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ind:icrier:118

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi Working Papers from Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi, India Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by G.K. Manjunath/A. Reddy ().