A Study On The Difference Patterns Of Rural Residents’ Basic Health Expenditure In China

The development of rural medical and health services is a key step in the implementation of the Healthy China strategy and the social and economic progress in rural areas as well as an important factor affecting the social stability and sustainable development of China.Government departments attached great importance to the rural medical and health services,and increased the intensity of investment,including a lot of manpower,material and financial resources,which made remarkable achievements.However,we should also notice that the rural areas existed great regional disparities in health services and health standards,which has become a barrier to the stable development of rural areas.Therefore,to study the medical consumption of rural residents in China has become an important issue of concern to the government and scholars.The data of population and consumption of each province were collected from the"China Statistical Yearbook 2015" published by the authoritative statistical department of Chinese government.Using the classical consumption model in economics—the extended linear expenditure system model(ELES),this paper measured the basic health expenditure of the rural residents in the whole country and each province,and then employed the Theil coefficient decomposition method to analyze the difference characteristics of the basic health expenditure of the rural residents in China.The four main research findings were as followed.(1)In 2014,there existed significant differences among 31 provinces and three regions in the per capita consumption expenditure and per capita health care expenditure of rural residents in China.The three regions showed the gradient difference characteristics of "the highest in the east area,middle in the central area and low in the west area".(2)From the national level,the basic health expenditure of rural residents accounted for 11.31%of the total basic expenditure of eight kinds of consumption,while the hot spots of current rural residents’ consumption were still in food and other expenses.From the provincial level,the difference of the basic health expenditure of rural residents among 31 provinces was very significant.(3)The relative health poverty index of rural residents in each province was lower than 1,which meant that the absolute health poverty was solved and taken off.In terms of the three regions,the average of the relative health poverty index of rural residents shows the spatial pattern of "the highest in the central area,middle in the west area and the lowest in the east area".In the terms of the provinces in the three region,the east area was mainly made up of "low poverty" provinces,"middle and high poverty" provinces each half in the central area,while the west area mainly consist of the "middle and high poverty" provinces.(4)The overall difference in the basic health expenditure of rural residents was 0.013;the difference among the three zones was 0.0024;and the inter-zones difference was 0.0106,which played a leading role in the overall difference.Based on the above research findings,this paper put forward three policy recommendations.First of all,it is necessary for the government to promote the development of the rural economy by reducing the burden on the peasants and increasing the actual disposable income of the farmers through the mutual efforts of appropriate policies and the investment of sufficient human and material resources and financial resources.Secondly,the government for these punctual and contiguous poor-healthy provinces need to employ the targeted policy support,financial investment and system security to ensure the quality of medical services in the rural areas,improve the level of rural residents health insurance.Finally,we should alleviate the contradictions of spatial differences in the zone,taking into account the regional differences between the three areas,so as to achieve the fair public health and medical resources.