Modelling Medical Insurance Scheme in China for Urban Employees and Residents

As the world's biggest developing country with a large population, building a sound medical care system in China is a very difficult task, in particular the ageing population imposes a heavy burden on medical insurance. It is important to analyse and evaluate the impact of the ongoing medical insurance system on individuals' health care benefits. This article reviewed the project on modelling medical insurance systems for urban employees and residents. Selecting one of the southwest capital cities in China, the project created two static micro simulation models of the medical insurance system in China. Using three kinds of data in the project for different purposes, the research investigated the sustainability of the urban medical insurance system, involving both urban employed individuals and non-working residents. The first model predicted the medical insurance scheme for urban employees and retirees. With 2006 as the commencement year, the model forecasted the medical service expenses and medical insurance policy settings for five years until 2010. The model for non-working urban residents estimated the potential urban resident population entering the medical insurance scheme, predicted the distributional impacts on families over 2008-2010. It also estimated the medical expenses and evaluated the insurance capacity of the social pool fund. These two models are connected with each other by the methodology of statistical matching.