BACKGROUND Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) patients face unique costs associated with their healthcare expenditures. As such, it is important that these patients have access to health insurance (HI) to help them pay for both routine and unforeseen health services. In this study, we explored factors related to health insurance enrollment and utilization among MMT patients, to move Vietnam ...

BACKGROUND Despite the broad coverage of the healthcare insurance system in China, the imbalances in fairness, accessibility and affordability of healthcare services have hindered the universal healthcare progress. To provide better financial protection for the Chinese population, China's new medical reform was proposed to link up urban employee basic medical insurance scheme (UEBMI), urban res...

BACKGROUND Health spending by the Chinese government has declined and traditional social health insurance collapsed after economic reforms in the early 1980s; accordingly, the low-income population is exposed to potentially significant healthcare costs. Financing an equitable healthcare system represents a major policy objective in China's current healthcare reform efforts. The current research...

An important issue with promoting formal insurance in the rural areas of developing countries that has been previously ignored is the interaction between formal insurance and preexisting informal risk sharing arrangements. This paper shows in theory that formal insurance will crowd out informal transfers even when individuals do not purchase insurance, which often makes the overall welfare impa...

BACKGROUND Several years have passed since the rural New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in China was established and policies kept continuous improvement. Its policies on chronic diseases vary by county but have certain shared characteristics. Following this modification of medical insurance policy, this study reassesses the provision of insurance against expenditure on chronic diseases in r...

This paper describes the contract design and institutional features of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India and presents preliminary evidence on the determinants of insurance participation. Insurance take-up is found to be decreasing in basis risk between insurance payouts and income fluctuations, higher among wealthy households, and lower among ...

INTRODUCTION Breastfeeding provides health benefits to infants and mothers, yet many women decide against breastfeeding. This study examined differences in the prevalence of breastfeeding among national, urban, rural, and Appalachian regions of the USA. METHODS Secondary data analysis of the US 2007 National Survey of Children's Health (n=27 388) data were completed for prevalence, insurance ...

BACKGROUND The primary health care (PHC) network contributed considerably to improving health outcomes in rural Iran. However, the health system suffers from inadequate responses to ever-increasing demands. In 2005, a reform comprised of a family physician (FP) programme and universal health insurance was implemented in all rural areas and cities with a population of <20 000. We explored the ro...

background & purpose: since 2005, a reform known as rural insurance and family medicine scheme has introduced to primary health care network in iran in rural areas and small towns. the content of the reform implies a substantial change in those aspects of health centers that mainly could be categorized as structural quality. although, this is the requirement of all health care providers, they a...