IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/aphecp/v17y2019i2d10.1007_s40258-018-0443-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Medical Insurance on Outpatient Visits by the Elderly: An Empirical Study with China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study Data

Author

Listed:
  • Chunjuan Qiu

    (East China Normal University, Ministry of Education)

  • Xianyi Wu

    (East China Normal University, Ministry of Education)

Abstract

Background As the largest developing country in the world, China is still on its way towards building an adequate system of health insurance through continuous reforms. For the elderly in China, an effective medical security system might be especially helpful. Objective This study investigates the effect of medical insurance on outpatient visits by elderly Chinese in order to identify effective policies to improve the Chinese medical security system. Methods Based on data taken from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, eleven candidate models were analyzed, among which a finite mixture negative binomial model with two components was chosen as the theoretical foundation for an analysis of the effect of medical insurance on outpatient visits by elderly Chinese. Results The significant variables were found to be basic medical insurance (BMI), sex, surveyed area, education level, health status, economic area, income level, and the number of living children for the elderly aged 60–69 years; BMI, age, health status, number of household members, and income level for the elderly aged 70–79 years; and BMI, age, sex, and the presence of chronic disease for the elderly aged 80 years and above. Conclusion Enrollment in BMI was found to be significantly associated with an increased number of outpatient visits, whereas supplementary medical insurance membership did not have a significant effect. The effects of BMI enrollment also differed by scheme and age. For those with a high rate of outpatient medical services utilization, the enhancing effect of BMI on the number of outpatient visits was not significant, so new medical insurance policies should be provided to the elderly population in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Chunjuan Qiu & Xianyi Wu, 2019. "The Effect of Medical Insurance on Outpatient Visits by the Elderly: An Empirical Study with China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study Data," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 175-187, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:aphecp:v:17:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s40258-018-0443-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s40258-018-0443-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40258-018-0443-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40258-018-0443-1?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2013. "Regression Analysis of Count Data," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107667273, November.
    2. Amitabh Chandra & Jonathan Gruber & Robin McKnight, 2007. "Patient Cost-Sharing, Hospitalization Offsets, and the Design of Optimal Health Insurance for the Elderly," NBER Working Papers 12972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Rainer Winkelmann, 2004. "Co‐payments for prescription drugs and the demand for doctor visits – Evidence from a natural experiment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(11), pages 1081-1089, November.
    4. Alex Jingwei He & Shaolong Wu, 2017. "Towards Universal Health Coverage via Social Health Insurance in China: Systemic Fragmentation, Reform Imperatives, and Policy Alternatives," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 15(6), pages 707-716, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rainer Winkelmann, 2015. "Counting on count data models," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 148-148, May.
    2. Galina Besstremyannaya, 2014. "Heterogeneous effect of coinsurance rate on healthcare costs: generalized finite mixtures and matching estimators," Discussion Papers 14-014, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    3. Nilsson, Anton & Paul, Alexander, 2018. "Patient cost-sharing, socioeconomic status, and children's health care utilization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 109-124.
    4. Luiz Paulo Fávero & Joseph F. Hair & Rafael de Freitas Souza & Matheus Albergaria & Talles V. Brugni, 2021. "Zero-Inflated Generalized Linear Mixed Models: A Better Way to Understand Data Relationships," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-28, May.
    5. Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti & Luca Pedini, 2020. "ParMA: Parallelised Bayesian Model Averaging for Generalised Linear Models," Working Papers 2020:28, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Trottmann, Maria & Zweifel, Peter & Beck, Konstantin, 2012. "Supply-side and demand-side cost sharing in deregulated social health insurance: Which is more effective?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 231-242.
    7. Landry, Craig E. & Shonkwiler, J. Scott & Whitehead, John C., 2020. "Economic Values of Coastal Erosion Management: Joint Estimation of Use and Existence Values with recreation demand and contingent valuation data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    8. Ghosh, Prasenjit & Rong, Jian & Khanna, Madhu & Wang, Weiwei & Miao, Ruiqing, 2017. "Have They Gone with the Wind? Indirect Effects of Wind Turbines on Bird Abundance," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258100, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Michel Beine & Ilan Noy & Christopher Parsons, 2021. "Climate change, migration and voice," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 167(1), pages 1-27, July.
    10. Christian Kleiber & Achim Zeileis, 2016. "Visualizing Count Data Regressions Using Rootograms," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(3), pages 296-303, July.
    11. D M Zimmer, 2023. "The effect of food stamps on fibre intake," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 28(2), pages 71-86, September.
    12. Jasna Atanasijević & Miloš Božović, 2016. "Exchange Rate as a Determinant of Corporate Loan Defaults in a Euroized Economy: Evidence from Micro-Level Data," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 228-250, May.
    13. Syed Muhammad All-E-Raza Rizvi & Marie-Ange Véganzonès-Varoudakis, 2019. "Economic, social, and institutional determinants of domestic conflict in fragile States," Working Papers hal-02340977, HAL.
    14. Kyriakos Drivas & Constantine Iliopoulos, 2017. "An Empirical Investigation in the Relationship Between PDOs/PGIs and Trademarks," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 8(2), pages 585-595, June.
    15. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2022. "The Log of Gravity at 15," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 21(3), pages 423-437, September.
    16. Vidhura Tennekoon, 2017. "Counting unreported abortions: A binomial-thinned zero-inflated Poisson model," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(2), pages 41-72.
    17. Breinlich, Holger & Novy, Dennis & Santos Silva, JMC, 2021. "Trade, Gravity and Aggregation," CEPR Discussion Papers 16552, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Rik L. Rozendaal & Herman R. J. Vollebergh, 2021. "Policy-Induced Innovation in Clean Technologies: Evidence from the Car Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 9422, CESifo.
    19. Oliver Westerwinter, 2021. "Transnational public-private governance initiatives in world politics: Introducing a new dataset," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 137-174, January.
    20. Geoffroy Enjolras & Philippe Madiès, 2020. "The role of bank analysts and scores in the prediction of financial distress: Evidence from French farms," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2978-2993.

    More about this item

    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:spr:aphecp:v:17:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s40258-018-0443-1. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.