Insured Vs Uninsured Groups

Health care is a special service which contributes to quality of life. It becomes the focus of considerable interest in both developed and developing countries. Especially, in developing countries, health care is one of the special development strategies beside poverty reduction and economic growth. In order to improve health care quality and health outcomes of people, the government has been putting efforts to upgrade the facilities, improve capabilities of medical staff and provide better health insurance system. However, what are the benefits of insurance? Is there difference between treatment qualities for insured and uninsured groups? The controversial questions are still being discussed and still controversial based on each country’s situation.
Vietnam has been putting lot of efforts in poverty reduction and achieved impressive success in reaching United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Health shocks are considered as one possible reason, which leads to poverty because people may face financial burden as well as further difficulties (World Bank, 2004). Thus, together with higher living standard, health becomes more important for the population. Health insurance is also increasingly helpful to reduce the financial burden in case of health shock (Wagstaff, 2005). Furthermore, it is …show more content…
Length of stay is the number of days a patient stays in hospital for treatment; treatment result is the status of patient after treatment at the time of discharge from hospital; and out-of-pocket payment is the actual amount a patient pays for the hospital after insurance reimbursement. However, there might be endogeneity problem because insurance is endogenous variable. Thus, instrument variable as insurance enrollment of patient’s province is used to overcome this selection