2018-05-01
Does health insurance coverage or improved quality protect better against out-of-pocket payments? Experimental evidence from the Philippines
Publication
Publication
Social Science & Medicine , Volume 204 p. 51- 58
This paper explores whether health insurance coverage or improved quality at the hospital level protect better against out-of-pocket payments. Using data from a randomized policy experiment in the Philippines, we found that interventions to expand insurance coverage and improve provider quality both had an impact on out-of-pocket payments. The sample consists of 3121 child-patient patient observations across 30 hospitals either at baseline in 2003/04 or at the follow-up in 2007/08. Compared to controls, interventions that expanded insurance and provided performance-based provider payments to improve quality both resulted in a decline in out-of-pocket spending (21% decline, p-value = 0.061; and 24% decline, p-value = 0.017, respectively). With lower out-of-pocket payments for hospital care, monthly household spending on personal hygiene rose by 0.9 (p-value = 0.026) and 0.6 US$ (p-value = 0.098) under the expanded insurance and provider payment interventions, respectively, amounting to roughly a 40–60% increase relative to the controls. With the current surge for health insurance expansion in developing countries, our study suggests paying increased and possibly, equal attention to supply-side interventions will have similar impacts with operational simplicity and greater provider accountability.
Additional Metadata | |
---|---|
, , , , , | |
doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.03.024, hdl.handle.net/1765/105446 | |
Social Science & Medicine | |
Wagner, N., Quimbo, S. (Stella), Shimkhada, R. (Riti), & Peabody, J. (John). (2018). Does health insurance coverage or improved quality protect better against out-of-pocket payments? Experimental evidence from the Philippines. Social Science & Medicine, 204, 51–58. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.03.024 |