Cargando…

Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China

BACKGROUND: Economic transition which took place in China over the last three decades, has led to a rapid marketization of the health care sector. Today inequity in health and poverty resulting from major illness has become a serious problem in rural areas of China. Medical Financial Assistance (MFA...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ma, Xiao, Zhang, Juying, Meessen, Bruno, Decoster, Kristof, Tang, Xiaohui, Yang, Yang, Ren, Xiaohui
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3215971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22011478
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-9276-10-44
_version_ 1782216452751753216
author Ma, Xiao
Zhang, Juying
Meessen, Bruno
Decoster, Kristof
Tang, Xiaohui
Yang, Yang
Ren, Xiaohui
author_facet Ma, Xiao
Zhang, Juying
Meessen, Bruno
Decoster, Kristof
Tang, Xiaohui
Yang, Yang
Ren, Xiaohui
author_sort Ma, Xiao
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Economic transition which took place in China over the last three decades, has led to a rapid marketization of the health care sector. Today inequity in health and poverty resulting from major illness has become a serious problem in rural areas of China. Medical Financial Assistance (MFA) is a health assistance scheme that helps rural poor people cope with major illness and alleviate their financial burden from major illness, which will definitely play a significant role in the process of rebuilding Chinese new rural health system. It mainly provides assistance to cover medical expenditure for inpatient services or the treatment of major illnesses, with joint funding from the central and local government. The purpose of this paper is to review the design, funding, implementation and to explore the preliminary effects of four counties' MFA in Hubei and Sichuan province of China. METHODS: We used an analytical framework built around the main objective of any social assistance scheme. The framework contains six 'targeting' procedural 'steps' which may explain why a specific group does not receive the assistance it ought to receive. More specifically, we explored to what extent the targeting, a key component of social assistance programs, is successful, based on the qualitative and quantitative data collected from four representative counties in central and western China. RESULTS: In the study sites, the budget of MFA ranged from 0.8 million Yuan to 1.646 million Yuan in each county and the budget per eligible person ranged from 32.67 Yuan to 149.09 Yuan. The preliminary effects of MFA were quite modest because of the scarcity of funds dedicated to the scheme. The coverage rate of MFA ranged from 17.8% to 24.1% among the four counties. MFA in the four counties used several ways to ration a restricted budget and provided only limited assistance. Substantial problems remained in terms of eligibility and identification of the beneficiaries, utilization and management of funds. CONCLUSIONS: MFA needs to be improved further although it evidences the concern of the government for the poor rural people with major illness. Some ideas on how to improve MFA are put forward for future policy making.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3215971
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2011
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-32159712011-11-16 Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China Ma, Xiao Zhang, Juying Meessen, Bruno Decoster, Kristof Tang, Xiaohui Yang, Yang Ren, Xiaohui Int J Equity Health Research BACKGROUND: Economic transition which took place in China over the last three decades, has led to a rapid marketization of the health care sector. Today inequity in health and poverty resulting from major illness has become a serious problem in rural areas of China. Medical Financial Assistance (MFA) is a health assistance scheme that helps rural poor people cope with major illness and alleviate their financial burden from major illness, which will definitely play a significant role in the process of rebuilding Chinese new rural health system. It mainly provides assistance to cover medical expenditure for inpatient services or the treatment of major illnesses, with joint funding from the central and local government. The purpose of this paper is to review the design, funding, implementation and to explore the preliminary effects of four counties' MFA in Hubei and Sichuan province of China. METHODS: We used an analytical framework built around the main objective of any social assistance scheme. The framework contains six 'targeting' procedural 'steps' which may explain why a specific group does not receive the assistance it ought to receive. More specifically, we explored to what extent the targeting, a key component of social assistance programs, is successful, based on the qualitative and quantitative data collected from four representative counties in central and western China. RESULTS: In the study sites, the budget of MFA ranged from 0.8 million Yuan to 1.646 million Yuan in each county and the budget per eligible person ranged from 32.67 Yuan to 149.09 Yuan. The preliminary effects of MFA were quite modest because of the scarcity of funds dedicated to the scheme. The coverage rate of MFA ranged from 17.8% to 24.1% among the four counties. MFA in the four counties used several ways to ration a restricted budget and provided only limited assistance. Substantial problems remained in terms of eligibility and identification of the beneficiaries, utilization and management of funds. CONCLUSIONS: MFA needs to be improved further although it evidences the concern of the government for the poor rural people with major illness. Some ideas on how to improve MFA are put forward for future policy making. BioMed Central 2011-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3215971/ /pubmed/22011478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-9276-10-44 Text en Copyright ©2011 Ma et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Ma, Xiao
Zhang, Juying
Meessen, Bruno
Decoster, Kristof
Tang, Xiaohui
Yang, Yang
Ren, Xiaohui
Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China
title Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China
title_full Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China
title_fullStr Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China
title_full_unstemmed Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China
title_short Social health assistance schemes: the case of Medical Financial Assistance for the rural poor in four counties of China
title_sort social health assistance schemes: the case of medical financial assistance for the rural poor in four counties of china
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3215971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22011478
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-9276-10-44
work_keys_str_mv AT maxiao socialhealthassistanceschemesthecaseofmedicalfinancialassistancefortheruralpoorinfourcountiesofchina
AT zhangjuying socialhealthassistanceschemesthecaseofmedicalfinancialassistancefortheruralpoorinfourcountiesofchina
AT meessenbruno socialhealthassistanceschemesthecaseofmedicalfinancialassistancefortheruralpoorinfourcountiesofchina
AT decosterkristof socialhealthassistanceschemesthecaseofmedicalfinancialassistancefortheruralpoorinfourcountiesofchina
AT tangxiaohui socialhealthassistanceschemesthecaseofmedicalfinancialassistancefortheruralpoorinfourcountiesofchina
AT yangyang socialhealthassistanceschemesthecaseofmedicalfinancialassistancefortheruralpoorinfourcountiesofchina
AT renxiaohui socialhealthassistanceschemesthecaseofmedicalfinancialassistancefortheruralpoorinfourcountiesofchina