School of Economics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Front Public Health. 2024 Oct 3;12:1374552. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1374552. eCollection 2024.
In the context of the Chinese government's advocacy for "Internal Circulation", ongoing reforms in medical insurance policies raise critical questions about whether the basic medical insurance system can stimulate resident consumption and enhance its quality. Based on five waves of panel data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS), this paper analyzes the impact of medical insurance on the consumption scale and structure of middle-aged and older adult rural residents by using the time-varying difference-in-differences (time-varying DID) method. The findings indicate that the Urban-Rural Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URRBMI) effectively stimulates the consumption scale of rural middle-aged and older adult individuals, particularly enhancing non-food consumption, development-oriented spending, and hedonic consumption. This, in turn, optimizes the consumption structure and improves overall consumption quality. Notably, URRBMI significantly enhances the consumption scale and structure among rural middle-aged and older adult women, unmarried individuals, and residents in western China. These results suggest that URRBMI plays a crucial role in alleviating consumption inequality within rural areas and across different regions, providing a theoretical foundation for policy-making.
在中国政府倡导“内循环”的背景下，医疗保险政策的持续改革引发了一个关键问题，即基本医疗保险制度能否刺激居民消费并提高消费质量。本文利用中国健康与养老追踪调查（CHARLS）的五期面板数据，采用时变双重差分（time-varying DID）方法，分析了医疗保险对中年及以上农村居民消费规模和结构的影响。研究结果表明，城乡居民基本医疗保险（URRBMI）有效刺激了农村中年及以上个体的消费规模，特别是促进了非食品消费、发展型消费和享乐型消费。这反过来又优化了消费结构，提高了整体消费质量。值得注意的是，URRBMI 显著提高了农村中年及以上女性、未婚者以及中国西部地区居民的消费规模和结构。这些结果表明，URRBMI 在缓解农村地区和不同地区的消费不平等方面发挥了重要作用，为政策制定提供了理论依据。
