| New Rural Cooperative Medical System (hereinafter referred to as NRCM) is an interdependent system for serious illness insurance which is organized, guided and supported by government, participated by voluntary farmers, and financed multiple by individuals, collective and government. NRCM has played an important role in preventingt farmers’disease risk, alleviating the poverty caused by illness and improving farmers’ health quality. And the financing mechanism of NRCM is important basis for guaranteeing the long-term operation of the system. NRCM financing mainly comes from all levels of government subsidies and individuals payment of farmers. Now, government subsidies to the midwest grows rapidly, but the growth speed of individuals payment is much slower than government subsidies. It is the key to increase farmers individuals payment that achieving the long-term and sustainable development of NRCM. So the increase of government subsidies is able to or not improve farmers’willingness to pay (hereinafter referred to as WTP) for NRCM become the focus of the study content.In this paper, the knowledge of risk theory and insurance demand theory in insurance economics, utility theory and health economics are used to analyse farmers’demand in NRCM financing, as well as government subsidies and farmers’ WTP. And build the theoretical framework of the farmers’WTP for NRCM. In empirical study, we conducted a survey of366households in rural areas of five districts which are Dujiangyan City, Mingshan County, Pengshan County, Yanting County and Fushun County in Sichuan Province. Through the establishment of the Cox regression model, farmers’WTP to be the explained variable, factors that affect WTP were classified by4kinds of15variables which are individual characteristics, household characteristics, the health of family members and the evaluation of NRCM. Using CVM method to analyse the change of WTP, then calculate the values of WTP of overall and5sample counties. The conclusions are following.(1)Famers’WTP increases with increasing government subsidies. With the continuous improvement of government subsidies, there are three trends of rise, decline and invariant of farmers’WTP for NRCM. By establishing crosstab and contingency coefficient test, we found that the change of WTP is correlated with the level of compensation can or not meet the needs of farmers’health service and the perspective of premium level significantly.(2)Family size, income, participation fees, the level of compensation can or not meet the needs of farmers’ health service and the perspective of premium level impact farmers’ WTP significantly on four different level of government subsidies. Family size and participation fees are negatively correlated with the WTP, whereas incom, the level of compensation can or not meet the needs of farmers’health service and the perspective of premium level are positively correlated with the WTP.(3)The degree of influence of the five explanatory variables like income on famers’WTP depends on increasing government subsidies. The degree of explanatory of family size, income and participation fees decreases with increasing government subsidie,while the degree of explanatory of the level of compensation can or not meet the needs of farmers’ health service and the perspective of premium level increasing with it.By the result of this paper, in conditions of increasing government subsidies, farmers’ WTP for NRCM showing improving trends, there is still a lot of room for growth of individual payment. So on improvements of the NRCM financing mechanisms, it could be considered in some place with good condition to implement multi-level financing standards, and increase the total funds gradually under the premise of farmers’voluntary choice. It also need to promote the growth of farmers’income, improve their willingness to pay as well as ability to pay, thereby improving farmers’welfare and medical services utilization and ultimately improving their health. |
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