The Inhibitory Effect Of Basic Medical Insurance For Urban And Rural Residents On Poverty Caused By Illness

In 2020,China will have fully built a moderately prosperous society,won the battle against poverty,achieved the goal of completely removing poverty from the poor population under the current standards,and eliminated absolute poverty by removing all poverty-stricken counties from the list.However,it is necessary to be vigilant that poverty due to illness still exists.Medical insurance plays an important role in spreading the risk of illness and easing the burden of medical treatment in this regard.Since the integration of urban residents’ medical insurance and the New Agricultural Cooperative into basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents in2016,academics have paid particular attention to it,and opinions vary on whether the integrated residents’ medical insurance can play a role in poverty reduction.This paper will examine whether basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents can play a role in curbing poverty caused by illness.Firstly,this paper will outline the development of urban and rural residents’ basic medical insurance and analyse its current situation from the perspective of equity and efficiency;from a general perspective: the integration of the urban and rural residents’ medical insurance system has been good since 2016,and the effect of integration is obvious;the urban and rural residents’ basic medical insurance system has achieved equity in rights and obligations,but there are inequalities in the allocation of health resources between regions and in the implementation of resources to individuals Although the basic medical insurance system has initially achieved the goal of providing full coverage,there are still problems in the management of funds between regions.Then,based on the above research,this paper uses the 2018 data from the China Household Dynamics Tracking Survey(CFPS)to study the suppressive effect of basic medical insurance on poverty due to illness among urban and rural residents.Based on the regression results,we find that basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents significantly reduces the likelihood of falling into relative poverty;this finding remains valid after using propensity score matching to solve the sample self-selection problem,and the results remain robust after replacing the explanatory variables.In addition,the mechanism of health insurance is analysed in terms of health care behaviour and household health expenditure pressure.It was found that the basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents could induce residents to seek hospital treatment after illness,improve patients’ medical treatment behaviour,increase the labour rate and ensure the stability of household economic income;at the same time,its financial compensation could reduce residents’ catastrophic medical expenditure,alleviate the pressure of residents’ medical and health expenditure,and thus save households’ money.Finally,according to the heterogeneity analysis: in terms of income,the basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents can play a significant role in counteracting poverty due to illness for low-income groups,both in terms of reducing the pressure of medical expenditure and improving the behaviour of patients seeking medical treatment.In terms of household size,rural residents can significantly improve their ability to combat poverty due to illness by participating in the basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents.In terms of gender,urban and rural residents’ basic health insurance has a good effect on both men and women in curbing poverty due to illness,but men have a better effect than women.Women are also more likely than men to choose positive health care behaviour.Finally,based on the above findings,this paper makes the following recommendations with a view to providing lessons for the fight against "poverty due to illness" and "relative poverty" : firstly,strengthen the government’s management and promote the integration of the system in a reasonable manner;secondly,establish a mechanism to combine medical insurance with other insurance programmes and the public health care system;thirdly,allocate urban and rural resources in a reasonable manner,so as to prevent poverty due to illness;Thirdly,rationalise the allocation of resources between urban and rural areas to improve equity of opportunity.