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Evaluating the Consequences of Salamat Universal Insurance on Healthcare Utilization and Infant Mortality

Habibi, Mahyar | 2020

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 52889 (44)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Management and Economics
  6. Advisor(s): Fatemi, Farshad; Vesal, Mohammad
  7. Abstract:
  8. In 2014, Iranian government initiated “Salamat” universal insurance program, aiming to provide free health insurance coverage for the uninsured population. Consequently, more than 10 million individuals enrolled in the program, and insurance coverage rose 15 percentage points among the urban population. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the program’s consequences on healthcare utilization and mortality of various age-groups. To this end, we have estimated data on healthcare utilization from the results of “Households Expenditures and Income Survey” for years 2011-2017, and also used the data on the frequency of mortality of each age-group taken from the National Organization for Civil Registration for the same period. Our approach for causal inference is built upon the difference-in-difference method that attributes the changes in outcomes to the magnitude of the program’s impact on increasing insurance coverage in counties. The results indicate that one percentage point enrollment to the program is associated with a 1.5 percentage point increase in having physicians visit, a 1.3 percentage point increase in consuming medical drugs, tests and scans, and a 0.17 decrease in infant mortality per 1000 births. However, we found no evidence that indicates the program has had an impact on the utilization of inpatient services or mortality of other age-groups
  9. Keywords:
  10. Health Insuranee ; Impact Evaluation ; Healthcare Utilization ; Infant Mortality ; Public Health Policy Making

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