Is health insurance really benefitting Indian population? Evidence from a nationally representative sample survey

Aashima and Rajesh Sharma

International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 2024, vol. 39, issue 2, 293-310

Abstract: Background Universal health coverage (UHC) is the centrepiece of the sustainable development goals and aims to ensure access to essential and quality healthcare services to all without facing financial hardships. Several health insurance programmes have been launched in India to progress towards UHC. Objective This study aims to assess the impact of health insurance (overall health insurance, government sponsored health insurance (GSHI), and private voluntary health insurance) on accessibility and utilization of inpatient care, out‐of‐pocket health expenditure (OOPE), catastrophic health expenditure (CHE), and impoverishment in India. Data and Methodology The 75th round of National Sample Survey Office was used in the study, which covered 555,115 individuals, 113,823 households, and 91,445 hospitalization incidence all over India. Descriptive statistics, multivariable logistic regression, and propensity score matching (PSM) methods were employed. Results Enrolment under health insurance has impacted the accessibility and utilization pattern of hospitalization to some extent for the insured. PSM showed that enrolment under GSHI schemes reduced OOPE by INR 3314 (USD 49) and CHE incidence by 1%–4% at various thresholds. Among poor persons, there was a marginal but statistically significant reduction of OOPE among those enrolled under GSHI schemes (p 0.05). Furthermore, enrolment under private voluntary health insurance reduced OOPE by INR 13,511 (USD 198) and CHE by 13.47% at 10% threshold, 4.61% at 25% threshold, and 2.65% at 40% threshold. However, its uptake was primarily confined to richer economic quintiles and urban areas that exacerbates equity concerns. All the results were confirmed through robustness measures employed. Conclusions There is a necessity to increase awareness and uptake of health insurance, along with introducing comprehensive insurance packages covering both inpatient and outpatient care. Also, increasing public health spending, strengthening public healthcare facilities, and improving regulatory implementation of private healthcare providers are imperative to augment financial protection.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.3716

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:bla:ijhplm:v:39:y:2024:i:2:p:293-310

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0749-6753

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Health Planning and Management is currently edited by Calum Paton

More articles in International Journal of Health Planning and Management from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().