The long-term effects of free health care provision for young children in Vietnam

This study examines the long-term effects of a national policy of Vietnam that provided free public health care for all children under 6 years old, 74.2% of whom were previously uninsured. I estimate the effects of exposure to the policy at age 0 to 6 on outcomes at age 7 to 21, when individuals are no longer eligible for the policy. Using a difference-in-differences design, I identify the effects of the policy from cross-cohort variation in eligibility and cross-province variation in the policy’s intensity.I find that early-age exposure to free health care leads to lower later-life hospitalization and lower out-of-pocket expenditures for hospitalization and treatment care in general. I document important heterogeneity across gender, ethnicity, household education and income. The effects are substantially larger among individuals from disadvantaged households and from communes being hit by natural disasters, those that typically face higher health risk but may not afford health care. Taken together, these findings suggest that providing access to health care can provide long-term benefits for the vulnerable population. I also find that early-age also reduces household spending on individual’s health insurance, but has no effects on parental investment in health or education