National Health Insurance and precautionary saving: evidence from Taiwan

By reducing uncertainty about future medical expenses, comprehensive health insurance can reduce households' precautionary saving. We examine this effect using Taiwan micro-data spanning the 1995 introduction of National Health Insurance. The effects of National Health Insurance are identified using employment-based variation in prior insurance coverage. Replacement of the households' prior insurance coverage with National Health Insurance is exogenous to the household, so our estimates are not subject to selection bias. Compared with the preceding government insurance programs, National Health Insurance reduced saving by an average of 8.6-13.7% with the largest effects for households with the smallest saving. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.