The Social Value of Health Insurance: Results from Ghana
利用加纳国家健康保险的推广，研究发现保险覆盖显著减少了家庭因健康冲击产生的医疗支出，防止非食品消费下降，并降低了儿童辍学打工的风险，揭示了正式健康保险的社会价值。
We use the roll-out of the national health insurance in Ghana to assess the cushioning effect of coverage on the financial consequences of health shocks and resulting changes in coping behaviors. We find a strong reduction in medical expenditures, preventing households from cutting non-food consumption and causing a decrease in the volume of received remittances as well as labor supply of healthy adult household members. Moreover, we present evidence that the insurance scheme reduced the likelihood that households experiencing a health shock pulled their children out of school in order to put them to work. Avoidance of such costly coping mechanisms is potentially an important part of the social value of formal health insurance.