The objective of this text is to develop the theory of social health insurance (SHI; the expression used especially in the United States is “public health insurance,” which will be viewed as one variant of SHI here). While a good deal is known about the demand and supply of private insurance, the theoretical basis of SHI is much more fragile. Specifically, on the demand side, what are the reaso...

We consider social insurance schemes with a two-part benefit formula: a flat (constant) term and a variable term which is proportional to individuals’ contributions. The factor of proportionality defines the type of social insurance. We adopt a two-stage political economy approach. At the first, constitutional stage, the type of social insurance is chosen “behind the veil of ignorance”, accordi...

BACKGROUND The rampant urbanization and medical marketization in China have resulted in increased vulnerabilities to health and socioeconomic disparities among the rural migrant workers in urban China. In the Chinese context, the socioeconomic characteristics of rural migrant workers have attracted considerable research attention in the recent past years. However, to date, no previous studies h...

THE AMENDMENTS TO THE Social Security .1ct passed in 1967 (Public Law 90-248) made several changes in the old-age, survivors, disability, hospital, and supplementary medical insurance system.’ Some of these changes affected significantly the actuarial status of the system. The principles used to determine tile financing stability of the program were not altered, however. This article discusses ...

Most of the world’s poor face large risks, which affect their investment decisions and contribute to the perpetuation of poverty (Karlan et al. forthcoming). In this context, insurance products targeted at the poor are seen as having substantial promise, as opportunities both to make profit and to improve efficiency and social welfare. The marketing of insurance products to the poor has faced t...

BACKGROUND As social health is a condition-driven, dynamic and fluid concept, it seems necessary to construct and obtain a national and relevant concept of it for every society. Providing an empirical back up for Iran's concept of social health was the aim of the present study. METHODS This study is an ecologic study in which available data for 30 provinces of Iran in 2007 were analyzed. In o...

Should choice be offered in social insurance programs? This review presents a conceptual framework that identifies the key forces determining value of offering choice. We show is higher larger variation individual valuations for extra is, but it gets reduced by both selection on risk and moral hazard. Besides adverse selection, implementation choice-based policies further challenged presence fr...