Project overview
The research investigates how different copayment structures affect healthcare utilization, health outcomes, financial protection, and insurer costs, while assessing households' preferences for alternative insurance products.
The experiment demonstrates that health insurance substantially increases the use of high-quality healthcare services, improves health outcomes, and reduces households' reliance on costly coping strategies. Although lower copayments encourage greater utilization of insured services, improvements in health and financial protection are broadly similar across different copayment levels. The study also compares these outcomes with insurer costs and household demand to assess the overall effectiveness of alternative insurance designs.
Research impact
The findings provide valuable evidence for designing sustainable and equitable health insurance programmes in low-income countries. The research informs health financing policies by demonstrating the importance of balancing healthcare utilization, programme sustainability, and beneficiaries' preferences when determining optimal copayment structures.
