Be rich or don’t be sick: Estimating Vietnamese patients’ risk of falling into destitution

Quan Hoang Vuong

No 14-031, Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: This paper represents the first research attempt to estimate the probabilities for Vietnamese patients to fall into destitution facing financial burdens occurring during their curative stay in hospital. The study models the risk against such factors as level of insurance coverage, location of patient, costliness of treatment, among others. The results show that very high probabilities of destitution, approximately 70%, apply to a large group of patients, who are nonresident, poor and ineligible for significant insurance coverage. There is also a probability of 58% that low-income patients who are seriously ill and face higher health care costs would quit their treatment. These facts will put Vietnamese government’s ambitious plan of increasing both universal coverage (UC) to 100% of expenditure and rate of UC beneficiaries to 100% at a serious test. The study also raises issues of asymmetric information and alternative financing options for the poor, who are most exposed to risk of destitution, following market-based health care reforms.

Keywords: Health insurance; Government policy on health care; Risk of destitution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 I19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 p.
Date: 2014-12-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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