Health Insurance Coverage and Its Impact on Medical Cost: Observations from the Floating Population in China
Open Access
- 11 November 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 9 (11), e111555
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111555
Abstract
China has the world's largest floating (migrant) population, which has characteristics largely different from the rest of the population. Our goal is to study health insurance coverage and its impact on medical cost for this population. A telephone survey was conducted in 2012. 644 subjects were surveyed. Univariate and multivariate analysis were conducted on insurance coverage and medical cost. 82.2% of the surveyed subjects were covered by basic insurance at hometowns with hukou or at residences. Subjects' characteristics including age, education, occupation, and presence of chronic diseases were associated with insurance coverage. After controlling for confounders, insurance coverage was not significantly associated with gross or out-of-pocket medical cost. For the floating population, health insurance coverage needs to be improved. Policy interventions are needed so that health insurance can have a more effective protective effect on cost.Keywords
This publication has 19 references indexed in Scilit:
- Health Insurance Coverage and Impact: A Survey in Three Cities in ChinaPLOS ONE, 2012
- Report from China: Health Insurance in China—Evolution, Current Status, and ChallengesInternational Journal of Health Services, 2012
- Urbanisation and health in ChinaThe Lancet, 2012
- Health care utilisation amongst Shenzhen migrant workers: does being insured make a difference?BMC Health Services Research, 2009
- Limitations of methods for measuring out-of-pocket and catastrophic private health expendituresPublished by WHO Press ,2009
- Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Spending by the Poor and Chronically Ill in the Republic of KoreaAmerican Journal of Public Health, 2007
- Beijing's socio-spatial restructuring: Immigration and social transformation in the epoch of national economic reformationProgress in Planning, 2006
- Which Rural Migrants Receive Social Insurance in Chinese Cities?Global Social Policy, 2005
- Community-based health insurance in poor rural China: the distribution of net benefitsHealth Policy and Planning, 2005
- Native Place, Migration and the Emergence of Peasant Enclaves in BeijingThe China Quarterly, 1998