Medical Demand and Growing Medical Costs in China—Based on the Gap between Senior Citizens’ Medical Costs in Urban and Rural Areas
Social Sciences in
No.3, 2015
Medical Demand and Growing Medical Costs in China—Based on the Gap between Senior Citizens’ Medical Costs in Urban and Rural Areas
(Abstract)
Feng Jin, Yu Yangyang and Lou Pingyi
In the context of population ageing and the growing gap in senior citizens’ medical costs between urban and rural areas, China’s rising medical costs are partly due to rational demand for healthcare. Using data from eight rounds of the China Health and Nutrition Survey from 1991 to 2008, we created birth cohort tracking samples to study the age effect on medical costs in urban and rural areas. Estimating the rise in costs caused by senior citizens’ medical needs in urban and rural areas, we found that urban residents’ average medical costs showed a marked rise with age, but there was no clear trend in the medical costs of rural residents over the age of 65. Ignoring the birth cohort effect results in underestimation of the gap between urban and rural medical costs for the elderly. Reducing this gap would result in an average rise in real medical costs of around 5.2 percent per annum between 2010 and 2030. Population ageing exerts greater pressure on rising medical costs in China than in developed countries. The health insurance scheme should adjust the distribution of medical resources in accord with the medical needs of the elderly at the same time as it keeps medical costs under control.