Does the Medical Security System Alleviate the Poverty among Rural Residents with Critical Illness in China?

Evidence from a Cross Sectional Survey

DOI

10.2991/aebmr.k.220404.064How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Poverty; Medical Security System; OOP payments; New Cooperative Medical Scheme; Critical Illness Insurance; Medical Financial Assistance

Abstract

China has established the Medical Security System (MSS), which consists of New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS), Critical Illness Insurance (CII) and Medical Financial Assistance (MFA), to alleviate poverty in rural areas. This study aims to answer whether the system had a poverty alleviation effect. We conducted a cross-sectional study with a structured questionnaire, 834 valid samples from central and western China were analyzed. The FGT poverty measure was adopted to assess poverty alleviating effect. Binary logistic regression with random effect analysis was used to identify factors associated with Out-of-pocket (OOP) payments-induced poverty. OOP payments pushed 50.5%, 59.5% of non-poor participants into poverty and extreme poverty. MSS protect 9.2%, 10.2% of participants from falling into poverty and extreme poverty and narrow the poverty gap, squared poverty gap by 66%, 85% respectively. Hospital level, household size, age, illness type and income status are associated with OOP payments-induced poverty incidence. It is suggested that OOP payments-induced poverty is serious, the poverty alleviating effect of MSS is limited. The effect on narrowing the poverty gap is greater than that of reducing poverty headcount. CII and MFA are not relatively as effective as NCMS at alleviating poverty. More efforts should be devoted to improving the MSS. Precise guarantees need to be provided for vulnerable rural residents.

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Lu Li
AU  - Lei Ci
AU  - Junnan Jiang
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/04/18
TI  - Does the Medical Security System Alleviate the Poverty among Rural Residents with Critical Illness in China?
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Creative Industry and Knowledge Economy (CIKE 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 340
EP  - 350
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/aebmr.k.220404.064
DO  - 10.2991/aebmr.k.220404.064
ID  - Li2022
ER  -