OBJECTIVE To measure the impact of China's New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) on catastrophic medical payments of rural households in Linyi County, Shandong Province. METHOD In 2005, from a stratified cluster sample of 3101 rural households, we identified 375 households that might be at risk of catastrophic payments by searching through NCMS claims and interviewing key informants. We inter...

This article presents the results from an experimental evaluation of a voluntary health insurance program for informal sector workers in Nicaragua. Costs of the premiums as well as enrollment location were randomly allocated. Overall, take-up of the program was low, with only 20% enrollment. Program costs and streamlined bureaucratic procedures were important determinants of enrollment. Partici...

Families of children with mental health care needs who live in states with mental health parity laws have lower out-of-pocket spending and are more likely to view their spending as reasonable compared with those living in non parity states. This suggests that mental health parity laws provide important financial benefits to families of children with mental healthcare needs.

Ms. H has Medicare due to a disability and was in a Medicare private health plan. She chose this particular plan because it had a cap on out-of-pocket payments. She discovered, however, that the cap did not always apply to her cancer treatments, and her out-ofpocket costs were higher than she had expected. Fortunately, Ms. H’s husband was starting a new job, and she was able to disenroll and ge...

OBJECTIVES To document how out-of-pocket health expenditure can lead to debt in a poor rural area in Cambodia. METHODS After a dengue epidemic, 72 households with a dengue patient were interviewed to document health-seeking behaviour, out-of-pocket expenditure, and how they financed such expenditure. One year later, a follow-up visit investigated how the 26 households with an initial debt had...

A national survey in 2006 found that Part D secured drug coverage for most seniors who were without it in 2005, prior to the Medicare drug benefit. Seniors without drug coverage in 2006 generally fell into two groups: those in relatively good health and those potentially difficult to reach. Compared with seniors covered through employer plans or the Department of Veterans Affairs, Part D enroll...

BACKGROUND Nearly 5 million children in the United States are affected by asthma, which is more than 5% of the population younger than 18 years. In children four years or younger, the prevalence increased 160% from 1980 to 1994. There are several effective drugs that relieve the symptoms of asthma and others are currently being developed, but even when these medications are prescribed, they may...

BACKGROUND Nearly 5 million children in the United States are affected by asthma, which is more than 5% of the population younger than 18 years. In children four years or younger, the prevalence increased 160% from 1980 to 1994. There are several effective drugs that relieve the symptoms of asthma and others are currently being developed, but even when these medications are prescribed, they may...

Objective To investigate trends in out-of-pocket health-care payments and catastrophic health expenditure in India by household age composition. Methods We obtained data from four national consumer expenditure surveys and three health-care utilization surveys conducted between 1993 and 2014. Households were divided into five groups by age composition. We defined catastrophic health expenditur...

This study estimates how out-of-pocket drug costs could change for vulnerable populations (racial and ethnic minorities, the near-poor, and seniors with a greater burden of chronic conditions) who qualify for the standard Medicare drug benefit. Although the new benefit might be associated with modest-to-moderate declines in out-of-pocket spending for seniors who do not qualify for subsidies, th...