scholarly journals Decoupling of Elderly Healthcare Demand and Expenditure in China

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1346
Author(s):  
Shangguang Yang ◽  
Danyang Wang ◽  
Wenhui Li ◽  
Chunlan Wang ◽  
Xi Yang ◽  
...  

This study examined the changing trajectory and factors that influenced the health and medical expenditure of the Chinese elderly population over the past two decades. Based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) from 1998 to 2018, inferential and multiple linear regression models were constructed. The key finding is that China has experienced a decoupling of healthcare demand (HCD) and healthcare expenditure (HCE) since around 2014, when HCE began to decline despite the fact that HCD continued to rise. This is a promising sign, suggesting that the government’s health insurance policy is working. Furthermore, participating in health insurance schemes can significantly reduce the elderly’s HCD and HCE, demonstrating that health insurance can effectively affect the elderly’s decision to seek medical treatment and improve their health condition. We also found that age, region, basic old-age insurance, and care by the government and institutions were significant factors that influenced the healthcare demand and expenditure of the elderly population.

Author(s):  
Shangguang Yang ◽  
Danyang Wang ◽  
Chen Li ◽  
Chunlan Wang ◽  
Mark Wang

Background: While Chinese cities are pursuing economic development, meeting citizen demand for medical treatment has only gradually been put on the agenda. Theoretically, in the second half of a person’s life, demand for medical treatment will rise sharply. Given limited medical resources, the match between demand and supply becomes more difficult. We conducted questionnaires in Shanghai to describe whether there are obvious group differences in the elderly population’s medical treatment options and provide empirical evidence on the determinants. Method: We collected 439 Shanghai Elderly Medical Demand Characteristics Questionnaires, which included five parts: personal information, health status, elderly person’s medical preference and expectation, satisfaction level for hospitals services, and medical insurance. We set up virtual explanatory variables according to the different medical behaviours of the elderly, and control variables composed of individual characteristics, socioeconomic characteristics, medical needs, medical resource availability, and medical expenditure. We used the MLR model to investigate medical treatment behaviour choice. Results: The medical treatment behaviour of the elderly population in Shanghai is affected by multiple factors. When experiencing physical discomfort, most of them choose to go to the hospital (64.69%). Age, income, household registration, and medical insurance reimbursement policy play a role in their decision-making. For general diseases, the proportion choosing specialist hospitals or community clinics is the highest (40.78%). Age, marital status, residential status, physical state, objective distance, medical expenses, and other factors have a significant impact. For severe diseases, they are more inclined (71.07%) to visit general hospitals, with the individual’s physical condition, living status, and accessibility to hospital resources more likely to affect their behaviour. Conclusion: Firstly, the importance of each factor varies depending on the conditions. Secondly, it may be more appropriate for China’s elderly health insurance system to set reimbursement rates based on the patient’s condition and disease type. Thirdly, medical behaviour has a distance friction effect, but the allocation of public service resources shows a strong centripetal concentration. It is necessary for the government to show due care about the regional distribution of the elderly population and to promote the rational distribution of medical resources in Shanghai.


Author(s):  
Preksha T. Singh ◽  
Shreyans D. Singhvi ◽  
Gautam Bhandari

Background: Depression is an emerging mental health condition and elderly population of the world is often affected by it. In the elderly, it often goes unnoticed and often burdens them.Methods: Two groups of population one from an old age home and the other from a community were selected. Data was collected using a Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and a demographic form. The data was compiled and analyzed using Google Spreadsheets.Results: Depression rates were found in both, the old age home and the community. The rates were found higher in the old age home than the community. The demographic factors chronic illness, gender, educational status and marital status were found to be associated with depression.Conclusions: As depression in elderly is a fairly common phenomenon, it should be paid more attention. The elderly should receive intervention for the disease and be able to sustain it.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katinka Linnamäki

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Hungarian Fidesz-KDNP government´s discursive practices of control and care during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper researches the Hungarian government’s communication on the official Hungarian COVID-19 Facebook page during the first wave of the pandemic. Its aim is to answer the question how the Hungarian government articulated control and care to reinforce sedimented gendered division of care work and institutions of control to tackle the potential disruption of the system of care before the widespread vaccination of the elderly population was available in the country. The paper argues that the pandemic has allowed the government to exert control in areas, such as the crisis in the workforce market and health care system, as well as in the destabilized system of care work. The main finding is that in the material the government performs control over care work, whose intensified discussion during the pandemic could lead to a potential disruption within the illiberal logic on two different levels. First, physical care work related to immediate physical needs, like hunger, clothing, pain enacted by female shoppers, female health care workers and female social workers, is newly defined during the pandemic as local, family-bound and a naturally female task. Second, the government articulates care work, either as potentially harmful (for the elderly population and thus indirectly to the government’s familialist politics), or as vulnerable and in need of protection from outside influences (portrayed through the interaction of health care workers and “hospital commanders”). This enables the government to perform full state control over care workers through the mobilization of police and military masculinity and to strengthen and re-naturalize the already existing hierarchies between traditional gender roles from a new perspective during the pandemic. This state of affairs highlights the vulnerability both of the elderly population, on whom its familialism builds, and of the system of informal care work, which builds on the unpaid care work of female citizens, who paradoxically are also articulated as potential harm for the elderly and for the system.


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (S4) ◽  
pp. 60-62
Author(s):  
Karen Pollitz ◽  
Donna Imhoff ◽  
Charles Scott ◽  
Sara Rosenbaum

This is a volatile time for health insurance policy. Medicare and Medicaid are in turmoil, as is the private health insurance market. Public and private health insurance costs constitute eighty percent of healthcare spending in the United States. Public health professionals depend on the insurance system to behave in ways that are responsive to public health in prevention and crisis management.Seventy-five percent of the American population, excluding the elderly, has coverage through the private health insurance system. Ninety percent of this group receives their insurance through employer-sponsored programs, and the remaining ten percent buy their own coverage. Approximately ten percent of the non-elderly population has insurance through a government program, and fifteen percent of the non-elderly population, almost forty-one million Americans, is uninsured.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Takumi Nishi ◽  
Toshiki Maeda ◽  
Susumu Katsuki ◽  
Akira Babazono

Abstract Background Cost sharing, including copayment and coinsurance, is often used to contain medical expenditure by decreasing unnecessary or excessive use of healthcare resources. Previous studies in Japan have reported the effects of a coinsurance rate reduction for healthcare from 30 to 10% on the demand for healthcare among 70–74-year-old individuals. However, the coinsurance rate for this age group has recently increased from 10 to 20%. This study aimed to estimate the economic impact of coinsurance rate revision on healthcare resource utilization. Methods We collected claims data from beneficiaries of the municipality National Health Insurance and the Japanese Health Insurance Association in Fukuoka Prefecture. We categorized subjects born between March 2, 1944 and April 1, 1944 into the 20% coinsurance rate reduction group and those born between April 2, 1944 and May 1, 1944 into the 10% reduction group. An interrupted time-series analysis for multiple groups was employed to compare healthcare resource utilization trends before and after coinsurance rate reduction at 70 years. Results The 10% coinsurance rate reduction led to a significant increase in healthcare expenditure for outpatient care. The 20% reduction group showed a significantly sharper increase in healthcare expenditure for outpatient care than the 10% reduction group. Similarly, the 10% coinsurance group significantly increased in the number of ambulatory visits. The 20% coinsurance rate reduction group had more frequent ambulatory care visits than the 10% reduction group. Conclusions These results suggest that increasing the coinsurance rate among the elderly would reduce outpatient healthcare resource utilization; however, it would not necessarily reduce overall healthcare resource utilization.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-135
Author(s):  
Muhammad Rizqi Fachrian Nur ◽  
Siskarossa Ika Oktora

Binary logistic regression is used for probability modeling or to predict binary response variables (Success / Failure) from one or more explanatory variables that are continuous or categorical. In carrying out this analysis, there are several ways to test the suitability of the resulting model, and one of them is the area under the ROC curve. The application of the analysis method in this study is the determinant of the elderly population to work. The population of the elderly in Indonesia is increasing every year. Many views that the elderly depend on other residents, especially in terms of the economy. However, if seen from the percentage of elderly working in Indonesia, it is increasing, including the elderly in KTI. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of the elderly in KTI, know the factors that influence the decision of the elderly population to work in KTI and find out the tendency of variables that affect the decision of the elderly to work in KTI. The data used are raw data from Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) was Survei Sosial Ekonomi Nasional (Susenas) Kor March 2018. This study using descriptive analysis methods and binary logistic regression. The results are that the variables that significantly influence the decisions of the elderly to work are residence, gender, age, education, family status, marital status, health complaints, and health insurance. Elderly who has characteristics residing in rural, male sex, classified as young elderly (60-69 years old), has the highest level of elementary school education, has the status of KRT in his family, is married, has no complaints health, and not having health insurance will have a greater tendency to decide to work.  


Author(s):  
Sabrina Ching Yuen Luk

This article uses a refined version of historical institutionalism to critically examine the complex interplay of forces that shape the health insurance reform trajectory in China since the mid-1980s, problems that plague the current multi-layered social medical insurance system and solutions to these problems. It shows that achieving universal health coverage (UHC) requires the government to ensure financing equity between urban and rural insured participants, access to affordable health care and the financial sustainability of medical insurance funds. Facing the challenges of rapidly aging population, the government implements a pilot scheme that integrates medical and nursing care for the elderly and a pilot long-term care insurance scheme for disabled elderly. It is expected that these two pilot schemes can provide better financial protection and quality of medical services for the elderly.


Patan Pragya ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
Gokarna Raj Aryal

Elderly citizens are the sources of knowledge, experiences and collections of different ideas in every society or nation. If we use their ability, long experiences and their conscience, our society or nation will be benefitted to reform national development and prosperity. Ageing population is a global phenomenon and the number is rapidly increasing in developing countries as compared to developed countries. The government of Nepal has declared that people with 60 years or more are elderly citizens. The growth rate of the elderly population is faster than that of the total population in Nepal. The observation shows that the proportion of elderly population is high in mountain and hilly regions as compared to Terai. However, it is noted that female elderly population is the highest among three ecological regions. The growing numbers of ageing population is a major concern in most of the developing countries like Nepal. The social, economic and demographic impacts of ageing population possess both opportunities and challenges to every society. In this situation, the Government of Nepal should attempt to enhance the self-reliance and provide social security of its elderly people to facilitate their continuous participation in society. The Government of Nepal has introduced the universal old aged allowances program since 1994/95 as a non-contributing social assistance to elderly citizens with 70 years or more. The starting allowances are nominal. At present context, it is not a sufficient amount for the elderly citizens but they have little support to health care, medicine, entertainment and desired foods and fruits. Likewise, the Government should establish old age homes, day care and ageing centers and parks for entertainment.


2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens-Oliver Bock ◽  
Dirk Heider ◽  
Herbert Matschinger ◽  
Hermann Brenner ◽  
Kai-Uwe Saum ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Lianjie Wang ◽  
Yao Tang ◽  
Farnaz Roshanmehr ◽  
Xiao Bai ◽  
Farzad Taghizadeh-Hesary ◽  
...  

(1) Background: Because of the rapid expansion of the aging population in China, their health status transition and future medical expenditure have received increasing attention. This paper analyzes the health transition of the elderly and how their health transition impacts medical expenditures. At the same time, feasible policy suggestions are provided to respond to the rising medical expenditure and the demand for social care. (2) Methods: The data were obtained from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) from 2011 to 2015 and analyzed using the Markov model and the Two-Part model (TPM) to forecast the size of the elderly population and their medical expenditures for the period 2020–2060. (3) Results: The study indicates that: (1) for the elderly with a mild disability, the probability of their health improvement is high; in contrast, for the elderly with a moderate or severe disability, their health deterioration is almost certain; (2) the frequency of the diagnosis and treatments of the elderly is closely related to their health status and medical expenditure; alternatively, as the health status deteriorates, the intensity of the elderly individuals’ acceptance of their diagnosis and treatment increases, and so does the medical expense; (3) the population of the elderly with mild and moderate disability demonstrates an inverted “U”-shape, which reaches a peak around 2048, whereas the elderly with severe disability show linear growth, being the target group for health care; (4) with the population increase of the elderly who have severe disability, the medical expenditure increases significantly and poses a huge threat to medical service supply. Conclusions: It is necessary to provide classified and targeted health care according to the health status of the elderly. In addition, improving the level of medical insurance, establishing a mechanism for sharing medical expenditure, and adjusting the basic demographic structure are all important policy choices.


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