The Study Of The Demand-side Moral Hazard In Social Medical Insurance Based On Hicks Price Effect

Social medical insurance system plays a positive role in protecting the health of residents and dispersing disease risks. The third-party payment in medicare shares medical expenses of patients, effectively alleviating the health burden on patients. However, third-party payment distorts the price of medical services, and induces medical insurance demand-side moral hazard. Based on Hicks price effect, this paper studies social medical insurance demand-side moral hazard.Firstly, according to Hicks price effect, demand-side moral hazard caused by medical insurance is composed of demand-side moral hazard welfare losses and demand-side moral hazard welfare gains. Then, author builds a model to measure medical insurance demand-side moral hazard, and analyze the factors that impact demand-side moral hazard. Finally, we calculate and analyze demand-side moral hazard of urban and rural residents in social medical insurance. Studies have shown that:(1)Medical insurance demand-side moral hazard depends on medicare coinsurance rate, price elasticity of demand for medical services, the income elasticity of demand for medical services, the percentage of medical services spending in the income. (2)The main factors affecting the demand-side moral hazard is consumer preferences, coinsurance rate, and the impact of disease on health. (3) From 1990 to 2011, social medical insurance demand-side moral hazard welfare losses show a downward trend and the proportion of demand-side moral hazard welfare gains on the rise in China. At present, residents’s demand-side moral hazard is small in China, and rural residents’s demand-side moral hazard is higher than urban residents’s.On the basis of theoretical analysis and empirical analysis, this paper proposes: (1)to improve the third-party payment ratio for severe illness in social medical insurance, (2)to reduce social medical insurance co-insurance rate of rural residents, (3)to develop commercial health insurance to supplement the social medical insurance proposals.