IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/mareco/v18y2024i3-4p255-281.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can a Universal Public Health Insurance Policy Dent Vulnerability to Poverty? Empirical Evidence from Rural India

Author

Listed:
  • Sunil Khosla

    (Sunil Khosla (corresponding author) is an Assistant Professor at the VIT-AP School of Social Sciences and Humanities (VISH), VIT-AP University, Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, India. E-mail: sunilkhosla1993@gmail.com)

  • Pradyot Ranjan Jena

    (Pradyot Ranjan Jena is a Professor at the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, Mangalore, Karnataka, India. E-mail: pradyotjena@nitk.edu.in)

Abstract

Idiosyncratic shocks, mainly health shocks, are common among rural households in developing countries, and as a result, many non-poor households fall into poverty and poor households remain poor. This study investigates the impact of a universal public health insurance policy, namely Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), on household vulnerability to poverty (VtP) in rural India. Using 17,468 national-level household data, household VtP has been estimated using feasible generalised least squares (FGLS), and the impact of a health insurance policy on household VtP has been investigated using propensity score matching (PSM) and endogenous switching regression (ESR). FGLS estimates show that VtP is found to be 33 per cent compared to a currently classified poverty headcount rate of 27 per cent. PSM and ESR results indicate that access to RSBY significantly reduces household VtP, especially in less developed states. JEL codes: I00, I13, I15, I18, I30, I32, I38, I39

Suggested Citation

  • Sunil Khosla & Pradyot Ranjan Jena, 2024. "Can a Universal Public Health Insurance Policy Dent Vulnerability to Poverty? Empirical Evidence from Rural India," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 18(3-4), pages 255-281, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:mareco:v:18:y:2024:i:3-4:p:255-281
    DOI: 10.1177/00252921241308210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00252921241308210
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00252921241308210?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana; Vulnerability to poverty; Health shocks; Propensity-score matching; Impact evaluation; Health insurance; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • I39 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:mareco:v:18:y:2024:i:3-4:p:255-281. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ncaer.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.