Does medical insurance improve health? An empirical analysis from China

Abstract

Background: Medical insurance is considered to be closely related to individual health status, while their relationship are left to be clarified. This article aims to examine the relationship between medical insurance and the health status of residents in China.

Methods: The data is from a nationally representative sample of CGSS2015, and the estimation methods of ordered logit model, generalised ordered logit model and instrumental variable (IV) were used.

Results: Both public medical insurance (PMI) and commercial medical insurance (CMI) had a positive correlation with residents' self-assessed physical and mental health, while PMI was more statistically significant and substantively important than CMI. The basic results estimated with the generalised ordered logit model and IV model still remained robust. Further analysis found that medical insurance, whether public or commercial, had more or less weakened the importance of income to personal health, showing a substitute effect for income.

Conclusion: PMI has been proven to help promote the physical and mental health of residents and moderate the importance of residents' income to health. Besides, CMI also plays a beneficial supplementary role in promoting residents' health.

Keywords: China; medical insurance; mental health; physical health.