TY  - BOOK
AU  - Das,Jishnu
AU  - Do,Quy-Toan
ED  - National Bureau of Economic Research.
TI  - The Prices in the Crises: What We Are Learning from Twenty Years of Health Insurance in Low- and Middle-Income Countries 
T2  - NBER working paper series
PY  - 2023///
CY  - Cambridge, Mass.
PB  - National Bureau of Economic Research
KW  - Analysis of Health Care Markets
KW  - jelc
KW  - Health Behavior
KW  - Health Insurance, Public and Private
KW  - Health and Economic Development
KW  - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
N1  - March 2023; Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
N2  - Governments in many low- and middle-income countries are developing health insurance products as a complement to tax-funded, subsidized provision of health care through publicly operated facilities. This paper discusses two rationales for this transition. First, health insurance would boost fiscal revenues for health care, as post-treatment out-of-pocket payments to providers would be replaced by pre-treatment insurance premia to health ministries. Second, increased patient choice and carefully designed physician reimbursements would increase quality in the health care sector. This essay shows that, at best, these objectives have only been partially met. Despite evidence that health insurance has provided financial protection, consumers are not willing to pay for unsubsidized premia. Health outcomes have not improved despite an increase in utilization. We argue that this is not because there was no room to improve the quality of care but because behavioral responses among health care providers have systematically undermined the objectives of these insurance schemes
UR  - https://www.nber.org/papers/w30996
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w30996
ER  -