title: Demand for private health insurance in Chinese urban areas.
abstract: Between 1993 and 2003, the proportion of urban residents without health insurance rose from 27 to 50%. The probability of outpatient visits in the previous 2 weeks dropped from 19.9 to 11.8% in urban areas between 1993 and 2003, and from 16.0 to 13.9% in rural areas. To improve risk-pooling and risk-sharing, private health insurance should play an important role in China's health insurance system. This paper estimates the demand for private health insurance in urban areas using contingent valuation methods. Individuals were asked about their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for major catastrophic disease insurance (MCDI), inpatient expenses insurance (IEI), and outpatient expenses insurance (OEI). The study was based on a household survey conducted in four small cities in China in 2004 and included 2671 respondents. More people would like to buy IEI and MCDI (48.5 and 43.0%, respectively) than OEI (24.5%). In addition, individuals would pay a higher premium for MCDI and IEI than for OEI. The price elasticities of demand for MCDI, IEI, and OEI were -0.27, -0.34, and -0.42, respectively. The determinants of enrollment in the three private health insurance programs were similar with employment status, age, education, and income.
authors.affiliation: Fudan University, Shanghai, China. xhying@shmu.edu.cn
authors.forename: Xiao-Hua
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Ying
authors.forename: Teh-Wei
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Jane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Jin-Hui
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002681:China; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017059:Models, Econometric; D017149:Private Sector / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*