The effects of China’s New Cooperative Medical Scheme on accessibility and affordability of healthcare services: an empirical research in Liaoning Province

摘要

BackgroundChina’s New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS), launched in 2003, was intended to prevent the impoverishment due to catastrophic illness costs. Previous studies have been conducted on the “design flows” of the NCMS, for example, the irrational insurance benefit package. But after several years of implementation, very little has been known about the improvements made by the NCMS and rural residents’ attitudes toward it. This article specifically focused on the improvements of healthcare services and the enrollees’ choices of providers since the implementation of the NCMS in Liaoning province.