The Impact Of China’s Medical Insurance System On Different Income Groups

With the deepening of the medical and health system reform, China’s medical insurance system has realized the transition from "system coverage" to "universal coverage". The public generally require medical insurance not only enable the sick to access medical services, but also adjust income redistribution, that is focusing on solving the impoverishment problems caused by illness among the urban and rural residents. In this context, it is not only an academic research with theoretical significance, but also in some ways a practical study which can provide reference for improving China’s medical insurance system and adjusting income redistribution policies, to explore the effect of China’s medical insurance system on income redistribution and to estimate the degree to which medical insurance narrows the income gap.This paper takes urban residents as the research object, using data from 2006-2012 China Urban Life and Price Yearbook and 2006-2012 China National Health Accounts Report, building model concerning the influence of medical insurance expenditure and income on personal income distribution based on Lorenz curves and Gini coefficient, to study the impact of medical insurance on income distribution. This paper is organized as follows:the first chapter is the introduction, which mainly describes the background and significance of the research; the second chapter is the analysis of the model, methods and data, which chiefly introduces the model selection and application of Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient; the third chapter is empirical analysis of the effect of China’s medical insurance system on different income groups, which includes three cases:the average of results, real data measurement and outpatient co-ordination; The fourth chapter is the conclusion and policy recommendations.Conclusions are as follows:on the whole, China’s medical insurance system narrows the income gap and has a positive redistribution effect. Due to the differences in initial income, low-income groups are more sensitive to changes in the medical insurance expenditure and income than high-income groups. In terms of medicine and medical expenditure, residents’individually paid medical fund and out-of-pocket health payment have a deterministic increasing trend, and after paying medical fund, the income gap between different groups widens. In views of medical insurance income, the average of results shows that there are transfer payments from high-income groups to low-income groups, but the progressivity is low; real data measurement indicates that all income groups benefit from medical insurance, The overall increase of equity in medical insurance mainly derives from the transfer income from units and finance to all groups, but there is no progressivity; on the premise of constant total income, outpatient co-ordination improves the distribution of low-income and middle-income groups and realizes the income redistribution between different groups, which is conducive to equity.In order to effectively adjust the income redistribution policies to promote the equity of medical insurance, we should do the overall planning and top-level design of the medical insurance system, further improve the financing mechanism of medical insurance, appropriately increase the treatment level of medical insurance, gradually weaken and cancel individual accounts, and implement the outpatient co-ordination.