The impact of health insurance programs for children: evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

This study assesses the impact of children’s health insurance programs on health care utilization and health care expenditures of children from 6 to 14 years old in Vietnam using four rounds of the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys from 2006 to 2012. We find a positive effect of both student and free health insurance programs on the number of health care visits. This positive impact tends to increase over time, and the impact of the free health insurance program is larger than the impact of the student health insurance program. Regarding out-of-pocket health expenditures per visit, we find a reducing effect on this outcome of the free health insurance program but not the student health insurance program.