| Although health is an important factor in economic development, millions of China's rural residents have no medical coverage. Nearly 10 percent of those that were sick in rural China consciously did not seek medical care, mostly because of financial constraints. More than 25% of rural residents are dissatisfied with their village's health system. In response to this deteriorating situation, a new cooperative medical system (NCMS) was initialized in rural China in 2003 by the government. However, after two years of trials, there has been no household-based, economic analysis of the program. This paper provides one of the first. Although where introduced, most rural residents voluntarily participate, there are many problems with the program. First, at least... |
