American Economic Review Vol. 111 No. 9 2021
The Challenges of Universal Health Insurance in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Indonesia’s National Health Insurance
Abstract
To investigate barriers to universal health insurance in developing countries, we designed a randomized experiment involving about 6,000 households in Indonesia who are subject to a government health insurance program with a weakly enforced mandate. Time-limited subsidies increased enrollment and attracted lower-cost enrollees, in part by reducing the strategic timing of enrollment to correspond with health needs. Registration assistance also increased enrollment, but increased attempted enrollment much more, as over one-half of households who attempted to enroll did not successfully do so. These findings underscore how weak administrative capacity can create important challenges in developing countries for achieving widespread coverage.
- DOI
- 10.1257/aer.20200523
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 3035-3063
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref