美国老年医疗保险私有化的困境与启示

美国老年医疗保险私有化改革的困境源于民主党和共和党对政府主导和市场主导的方向之争,医疗服务的市场化不一定能导致效率的提高,公共医疗保险在控制费用上可能更有效.美国老年医疗保险私有化改革中的问题与争议对目前我国卫生体制改革有很强的借鉴意义.     

法国的补充医疗保险及其借鉴意义

主要研究了补充医疗保险在法国社会保障制度中的作用,强调了其市场结构和业绩方面的主要特征。首先简要回顾了法国医疗保险制度发展的历史以及补充医疗保险与公共医疗保险的关系,接着介绍了公共医疗保险和补充医疗保险的保障范围和程度,考察了法国补充医疗保险的市场结构、监管法规和市场业绩。最后阐述了法国补充医疗保险对我国发展医疗保险的借鉴意义。     

美国检验项目医保支付政策研究及启示

通过介绍美国检验项目开展现状,总结了美国公共医疗保险与商业医疗保险检验项目医保支付政策的支付原则、范围、依据、方式等特点,并指出了美国检验项目医保支付面临的问题,启示我国需注重合理需求、项目评估、费用控制及动态调控,以完善我国临床检验支付政策。     

美国《州儿童医疗保险计划》源起

1997年美国国会通过了《州儿童医疗保险计划》(SCHIP),为低收入家庭的儿童提供医疗保险。这是美国在公共福利政策方面的重大改革,在联邦资助州的医疗保险事业上具有里程碑的意义。在福利政策扩大困难重重的美国,该儿童医疗保险计划的确立,需要一定的社会条件和推动力量:20世纪90年代美国有大量的无医保儿童,成为家庭和社会的极大负担;克林顿执政后美国经济走向繁荣;SCHIP计划制定者顺应了增量立法的潮流;两党通过政治博弈达成妥协性共识。     

沈阳市大学生群体公共医疗保险制度满意度分析

目的了解影响沈阳市大学生就诊选择的主要因素,分析现行大学生城镇居民医疗保险满意度水平中感知质量和顾客满意情况,为医疗保险制度改革提供理论依据。方法对沈阳市大学生在校园中进行拦截式问卷调查,对获得数据结果进行多项式Logistic回归分析,找出影响沈阳市大学生就诊选择、感知质量和顾客满意的主要因素。结果就诊便利、医疗设备、医疗技术和对症疗效是大学生就诊选择、感知质量和顾客满意的共同影响因素,感知质量也受到服务态度和费用报销比例的影响,服务态度、期望一致和对比优势也是影响顾客满意的关键。大学生群体对自身公共医疗服务的期望偏低,对享有的公共医疗服务不满意。结论大学生对公共医疗保险制度整体满意度水平较低。建议重点改革小病险,将大病险与商业保险相结合,并加强医疗保险宣传力度。     

未来美国健康保险应考虑的问题

为了处理好各方面的利益关系和矛盾,美国未来健康保险应考虑以下几方面问题: 1.所有的美国公民提供基本利益的健康保险,解决越来越多的非保险人口利益。由于美国财政的困难,在医疗保险中将努力遏制经费。因此可以肯定,今后享受医疗保险者需要支付更多的费用。 2.允许私人支付资金,选择更大利益的医疗保险类别。这既可满足高薪阶层的利益,又可活跃美国医疗保险市场。     

双层医疗保障体系的运行及风险应对策略——来自智利的证据和经验

智利拥有公共和私人主体共同参与的医疗服务与医疗保障体系,且因政策上歧视高健康风险人群购买私人医疗保险曾引发逆向选择问题。本文梳理了智利私人医疗保险的发展及其双层医疗保障体系的运行逻辑,通过重点分析智利健康保证计划(GES)改革框架,结果发现,限制患者自付费用的比例、免费提供高成本的治疗药物是减少因社会经济地位导致的健康不公平的有效措施,其成功经验在于平衡了公共和私人医疗保险的发展关系,同时有法律和良好的政策工具规范私人医疗保险市场运行。以智利经验为启发,建议提高商业保险在我国医疗保障体系中的参与度,统一商业保险参与医疗保障事务经办的规范,同时促进商业健康保险与基本医疗保险良好协同。     

医疗保险个人账户的功能和影响(综述)

医疗个人账户被认为是对传统的医疗保险模式的一次重大改革,已经在世界上多个国家应用。自从新加坡在20世纪80年代建立医疗个人账户以来,医疗个人账户已经经历了20多年的实践,其设计思想和应用结果正在引起人们越来越多的兴趣;尤其在我国,自1998年开始,在全国范围内推行“统账结合”的法定医疗保险制度以来,医疗个人账户在保健制度中的功能和影响一直存在争议。目前,在商业医疗保险中引入医疗个人账户的国家主要有美国和南非;在法定医疗保险中引入个人账户的国家有新加坡和我国[1]。由于受到医疗服务市场状况、税收政策、医疗保险制度和社会…     

美国健康保险制度的现状

美国健康保险制度在美国卫生事业管理及卫生经费开支中占有极为重要的地位。美国的健康保险制度包括两大类,一类是国家的公共保险计划,另一类是私人的医疗保险。1984年美国总卫生经费开支为3870亿,占国民生产总值的10.6%,人均费用为158美元,     

美国医疗照顾制出台新计划

美国是一个以私立医疗保险为主的国家,政府出资举办的医疗保险主要有2种,即以老年人为主要覆盖对象的国家医疗照顾制(MEDICARE)和以低收入即所谓穷人为主要覆盖对象的公共医疗补助制(MEDI-CAID)。据2003年的统计资料,由雇主为雇员(包括政府为其工作人员)购买医疗保险的占54%,私     

Public option and private profits

Background

The debate on US healthcare reform has largely focused on the introduction of a public health plan option. While supporters stress various beneficial effects that would arise from increased competition in the health insurance market, opponents often contend that a public plan would drive insurers out of the market and potentially lead to the ‘collapse’ of the private health insurance industry.

Objectives

To contribute to the US healthcare reform debate by inferring, from financial market data, the effect that the public option is likely to have on the private health insurance market.

Methods

The study utilized daily data on the price of a security that was traded in a prediction market from June 2009 and whose pay-off was tied to the event that a federal government-run healthcare plan — the ‘public option’ - would be approved by 31 December 2009 (100 daily observations). These data were combined with data on stock returns of health insurance companies (1500 observations from 100 trading days and 15 companies) to evaluate the expected effect of the public option on private health insurers. The impact on hospital companies (1000 observations) was also estimated.

Results

The results suggested that daily stock returns of health insurance companies significantly responded to the changing probability regarding the public option. A 10% increase in the probability that the public option would pass, on average, reduced the stock returns of health insurance companies by 1.28% (p < 0.001). Hospital company stock returns were also affected (0.9% reduction; p < 0.001).

Conclusions

The results reveal the market expectation of a negative effect of the public option on the value of health insurance companies. The magnitude of the effect suggests a downward adjustment in the expected profits of health insurers of around 13%, but it does not support more calamitous scenarios.     

The effects of public health insurance expansion on private health insurance in urban China

The public social health insurance coverage has rapidly increased in China in the last decade. The rapid market development and high economic growth also present an immense opportunity for the private insurance market. This paper uses the China Health and Nutrition Survey panel data and the difference-in-difference method to identify the causal effects of public health insurance expansion on private health insurance development in the case of expansion of the China Urban Residential Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) program. The paper finds private health insurance enrollment is not affected by the introduction and expansion of URBMI. Rather, private health insurance plays supplementary roles. The findings present the challenges and opportunities for public policies to develop and regulate private health insurance to meet the market niches and provide health insurance to the demands of a heterogeneous population. The findings also have broader implications for other developing nations where public health insurance intends to rapidly expand towards the universal health coverage.     

Women's health insurance coverage 1980-2005

BACKGROUND: In the fragmented US health insurance system, women's health insurance coverage is an outcome both of changes in the availability of private and public health insurance and of changing patterns of labor force participation and household formation. Over the past 2 decades, women's socioeconomic circumstances have changed and public policy around health insurance coverage for low-income women has also undergone substantial modification. METHODS: This study examines the roles of these changes in circumstances and policy on the level and composition of women's health insurance. Using the Census Bureau's March Current Population Survey 1980-2005, the government's principal source of nationally representative labor market and health insurance data, we examine how changes in marriage, full-time and part-time labor force participation, and public policy around coverage affected the level and source of women's health insurance coverage over 3 periods: 1980-1987, 1988-1994, and 1995-2005. RESULTS: Health insurance coverage rates have fallen for both women and men since 1980. What makes women different is that, in addition to the decline in coverage, the composition of health insurance coverage for women has also changed markedly. More women now obtain health insurance on their own, rather than as dependents, than did in 1980. A larger fraction of insured women are now enrolled in Medicaid than were in 1980. Women's routes to coverage have changed as their social and economic circumstances have changed and as policy, especially Medicaid policy, has evolved. CONCLUSIONS: Women's channels for obtaining health insurance coverage are more fragmented than those of men. The availability of multiple sources of coverage, and the possibility of moving amongst them, have not, however, insulated women from the overall declines in health insurance coverage caused by the rising cost of private health insurance.     

浅析美国医改的效益及借鉴意义

美国于当地时间2010年3月21日通过了酝酿已久的医改法案,本法案的通过成为美国各界普遍关注的焦点,也引起了世界各国的关注。为了使人们能够从卫生政策角度了解这项法案,本文从社会效益和经济效益两方面对医改法案作了介绍,包括:保险支付、保险公司责任、药品补贴、人力资源配置、公共卫生、服务质量、税收、保险欺诈和成本控制。分析了美国医改对中国医改的借鉴意义,提出了适当加大政府对大病、慢病和弱势群体卫生投资的重要性。同时卫生服务系统的规划要考虑成本控制措施,如加强预防和疾病控制、减少浪费和诱导需求。在卫生改革过程中引入质量管理手段和医疗信息化管理是医疗卫生发展的趋势,也是中国卫生事业管理发展的必由之路。     

Child outpatient mental health service use: why doesn't insurance matter?

BACKGROUND: Several recent studies of child outpatient mental health service use in the US have shown that having private insurance has no effect on the propensity to use services. Some studies also find that public coverage has no beneficial effect relative to no insurance. AIMS: This study explores several potential explanations, including inadequate measurement of mental health status, bandwagon effects, unobservable heterogeneity and public sector substitution for private services, for the lack of an effect of private insurance on service use. METHODS: We use secondary analysis of data from the three mainland US sites of NIMH's 1992 field trial of the Cooperative Agreement for Methodological Research for Multi-Site Surveys of Mental Disorders in Child and Adolescent Populations (MECA) Study. We examine whether or not a subject used any mental health service, school-based mental health services or outpatient mental health services, and the number of outpatient visits among users. We also examine use of general medical services as a check on our results. We conduct regression analysis; instrumental variables analysis, using instruments based on employment and parental history of mental health problems to identify insurance choice, and bivariate probit analysis to examine multiservice use. RESULTS: We find evidence that children with private health insurance have fewer observable (measured) mental health problems. They also appear to have a lower unobservable (latent) propensity to use mental health services than do children without coverage and those with Medicaid coverage. Unobserved differences in mental health status that relate to insurance choice are found to contribute to the absence of a positive effect for private insurance relative to no coverage in service use regressions. We find no evidence to suggest that differences in attitudes or differences in service availability in children's census tracts of residence explain the non-effect of insurance. Finally, we find that the lack of a difference is not a consequence of substitution of school-based for office-based services. School-based and office-based specialty mental health services are complements rather than substitutes. School-based services are used by the same children who use office-based services, even after controlling for mental health status. DISCUSSION: Our results are consistent with at least two explanations. First, limits on coverage under private insurance may discourage families who anticipate a need for child mental health services from purchasing such insurance. Second, publicly funded services may be readily available substitutes for private services, so that lack of insurance is not a barrier to adequate care. Despite the richness of data in the MECA dataset, cross-sectional data based on epidemiological surveys do not appear to be sufficient to fully understand the surprising result that insurance does not enable access to care. IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND RESEARCH: Limits on coverage under private mental health insurance combined with a relatively extensive system of public mental health coverage have apparently generated a situation where there is no observed advantage to the marginal family of obtaining private mental health insurance coverage. Further research using longitudinal data is needed to better understand the nature of selection in the child mental health insurance market. Further research using better measures of the nature of treatment provided in different settings is needed to better understand how the private and public mental health systems operate.     

Privatization within the Dutch context: a comparison of the health insurance systems of the Netherlands and the United States

In 2006, the Netherlands passed the Health Insurance Act requiring all legal residents to obtain health insurance from private insurance companies. The reform created a national health insurance system guaranteed to all citizens regardless of income or labor force status and introduced a market orientation that makes private insurance companies the sole providers of health insurance. How does the new policy compare to the US model of private health insurance provision? Is this reform evidence of a shift toward the American model? We use a comparative case study method to distinguish the new Dutch system from the private insurance system in the United States. We find that although the Dutch system includes market solutions similar to the US model, it still provides a universal guarantee of coverage to all of its citizens and should be viewed as 'privatization' within the Dutch context rather than a cooptation of American health policy.     

Employer-sponsored health insurance for early retirees: impacts on retirement,health, and health care

The proportion of large employers offering retiree health insurance in the US has declined by half in the past 20 years. This paper examines the potential implications of this change by estimating the effects of a retiree health insurance (RHI) offer on a comprehensive set of labor, health and health care use outcomes in the near-elderly population. An RHI offer increases the probability of early retirement by 37% for both men and women. While the results suggest that an RHI offer has little, if any, effect on health, there is strong evidence that RHI provides significant protection from high out-of-pocket medical costs. In the top 40% of the out-of-pocket spending distribution, those with an offer of retiree coverage spend 22% less on average. Estimates of the value of RHI of over $4,000 per year suggest that increasing opportunities for the near-elderly to purchase coverage at actuarially-fair prices through the individual market or public programs could significantly increase insurance coverage and reduce financial risk for this age group.     

Managed care: the US experience

This article provides an overview of managed health care in the USA--what has been achieved and what has not--and some lessons for policy-makers in other parts of the world. Although the backlash by consumers and providers makes the future of managed care in the USA uncertain, the evidence shows that it has had a positive effect on stemming the rate of growth of health care spending, without a negative effect on quality. More importantly, it has spawned innovative technologies that are not dependent on the US market environment, but can be applied in public and private systems globally. Active purchasing tools that incorporate disease management programmes, performance measurement report cards, and alignment of incentives between purchasers and providers respond to key issues facing health care reform in many countries. Selective adoption of these tools may be even more relevant in single payer systems than in the fragmented, voluntary US insurance market where they can be applied more systematically with lower transaction costs and where their effects can be measured more precisely.     

Unwinding the State subsidisation of private health insurance in Ireland

Ireland's private health insurance market provides primarily supplementary health insurance for hospital services, operating alongside a public hospital system to which residents have universal access entitlements, subject to some copayments for those without a medical card. The State subsidises the purchase of private health insurance through measures including tax relief on premiums and not charging the full economic cost for private beds in public hospitals. Furthermore, privately insured patients occupying public beds in public hospitals did not, until 2014, incur charges for such accommodation, apart from modest statutory charges. In the Budget in October 2013, a number of measures were announced that began to unwind these subsidies. Although it was initially feared that these measures would add to premium inflation, leading in turn to further discontinuation of health insurance, the evidence suggests that premium inflation has eased and take-up has stabilised, although some of this may have been due to the introduction of lifetime community rating in May 2015. Nevertheless, it would appear that the restriction on the subsidisation of private health insurance has not had a significant adverse effect on the market, while it has reduced an inequitable cross-subsidy.