title: Benefit distribution of social health insurance: evidence from china's urban resident basic medical insurance.
abstract: Equity is one of the essential objectives of the social health insurance. This article evaluates the benefit distribution of the China's Urban Residents' Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI), covering 300 million urban populations. Using the URBMI Household Survey data fielded between 2007 and 2011, we estimate the benefit distribution by the two-part model, and find that the URBMI beneficiaries from lower income groups benefited less than that of higher income groups. In other words, government subsidy that was supposed to promote the universal coverage of health care flew more to the rich. Our study provides new evidence on China's health insurance system reform, and it bears meaningful policy implication for other developing countries facing similar challenges on the way to universal coverage of health insurance.
authors.affiliation: West China School of Public Health, Sichuan University, West China Research Center for Rural Health Development Sichuan University.
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Economics and Management, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.
authors.forename: Sen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: School of Public Administration, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China and zhouqinhappy@126.com.
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000191:economics; D018166:Health Care Reform; D054625:Healthcare Disparities / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage; D007348:Insurance, Health; D009313:National Health Programs; D011203:Poverty; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Benefit; China; equity; health insurance; health system reform