Effect of Critical Illness Insurance on Household Catastrophic Health Expenditure: The Latest Evidence from the National Health Service Survey in China

Anqi Li, Yeliang Shi, Xue Yang and Zhonghua Wang
Additional contact information
Anqi Li: School of Health Policy Management, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China
Yeliang Shi: School of Health Policy Management, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China
Xue Yang: School of Health Policy Management, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China
Zhonghua Wang: School of Health Policy Management, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-17

Abstract: Background: China fully implemented the critical illness insurance (CII) program in 2016 to alleviate the economic burden of diseases and reduce catastrophic health expenditure (CHE). With an aging society, it is necessary to analyze the extent of CHE among Chinese households and explore the effect of CII and other associated factors on CHE. Methods: Data were derived from the Sixth National Health Service Survey (NHSS, 2018) in Jiangsu Province. The incidence and intensity of CHE were calculated with a sample of 3660 households in urban and rural areas in Jiangsu Province, China. Logistic regression and multiple linear regression models were used for estimating the effect of CII and related factors on CHE. Results: The proportion of households with no one insured by CII was 50.08% (1833). At each given threshold, from 20% to 60%, the incidence and intensity were higher in rural households than in urban ones. CII implementation reduced the incidence of CHE but increased the intensity of CHE. Meanwhile, the number of household members insured by CII did not affect CHE incidence but significantly decreased CHE intensity. Socioeconomic factors, such as marital status, education, employment, registered type of household head, household income and size, chronic disease status, and health service utilization, significantly affected household CHE. Conclusions: Policy effort should further focus on appropriate adjustments, such as dynamization of CII lists, medical cost control, increasing the CII coverage rate, and improving the reimbursement level to achieve the ultimate aim of using CII to protect Chinese households against financial risk caused by illness.

Keywords: critical illness insurance; household; catastrophic health expenditure; incidence and intensity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/5086/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/5086/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:24:p:5086-:d:297462

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().