Publication: The Health Effects of Universal Health Care : Evidence from Thailand
Date
2012-07
ISSN
Published
2012-07
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper exploits the staggered
rollout of Thailand s universal health coverage scheme to
estimate its impacts on whether individuals report
themselves as being too ill to work. The statistical power
comes from the fact that there is an average of 62,000
respondents in the labor force survey at each survey date
and no less than 68 survey dates, most of which are just one
month apart. The analysis finds that universal coverage
reduced the likelihood of people reporting themselves to be
too sick to work: the authors estimate the effect to be
-0.004 one year after universal coverage and -0.007 three
years after. The estimated effects are much larger among
those age 65 and over. Universal coverage had a much larger
effect on health (about four times larger) than the Village
Fund scheme, which provided free credit to rural households
through a subsidized microcredit scheme and which was rolled
out around the same time as universal coverage.
Citation
“Wagstaff, Adam; Manachotphong, Wanwiphang. 2012. The Health Effects of Universal Health Care : Evidence from Thailand. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 6119. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/1eb30ad9-1925-53a4-9db8-264bcb6bf425 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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