Achieving universal health coverage, including financial risk protection and access to quality essential health-care services, is one of the main Sustainable Development Goals. In low-income countries, innovative and affordable health financing systems are key to realize these goals. This paper...

In 2007, China launched a subsidized voluntary public health insurance program, the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance, for urban residents without formal employment, including children, the elderly, and other unemployed urban residents. We estimate the impact of this program on health care...

We examine economic vulnerability to illness when, as for informal sector workers in Thailand, there is universal coverage for health care but earnings losses are uninsured. Even with comprehensive health care entitlement, severe illness that strikes an initially healthy worker is found to raise...

In 2007, China launched a subsidized voluntary public health insurance program, the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance, for urban residents without formal employment, including children, the elderly, and other unemployed urban residents. We estimate the impact of this program on health care...

Medicaid was primarily designed to protect and insure the poor against medical shocks. Yet, poorer people tend to live shorter lifespans and incur lower medical expenses before death than richer people. Taking these and other important dimensions of heterogeneity into account, and carefully...

This paper examines the impact of health insurance expansion on medical liability costs using the case of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion has increased the demand for medical services, but in doing so it may also have increased physicians' liability in...

We use a five percent sample of Americans' credit bureau data to study the effects of public health insurance on the geography of consumer financial health. Exploiting the nearly universal eligibility for Medicare at age 65, we find a 30 percent reduction in the level of debts in collections...

High prescription drug prices are driving ever-increasing United States healthcare costs, and the federal government is following this alarming trend with ninety-five billion dollars in expenditures for prescription drugs under Medicare Part D. Even accepting arguments that high drug prices are...

During each annual election period, from November 15 to December 31, individuals enrolled in valid Medicare prescription drug plans (PDPs) can switch to another plan. Those who are eligible for Medicare Part D but are not enrolled can also register. The number of PDPs available increased 31...

A primary purpose of health insurance is to protect families from medical expenditure risk. Despite this goal and despite the fact that research has found that Medicaid can crowd out private coverage, little is known about the effect of Medicaid on families' spending patterns. This paper...