Out of pocket (OOP) healthcare payments are expenditures borne directly by a patient or households from their income or savings. Out of pocket healthcare expenses are responsible for pushing millions of families into poverty every year. In China the share of OOP expenditure has steadily increased from 20% in 1980 to 49% in 2006. They have dropped steadily since 2006. The introduction of Catastrophic Medical Insurance (CMI) in China in 2013 (urban and rural) covers 1.01 billion people and provides financial protection to families from the risk of large medical expenditures.
Prepared by
Rahul Karan Reddy
Rahul Karan Reddy is Senior Research Associate at Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA). He works on domestic Chinese politics and trade, producing data-driven research in the form of reports, dashboards and digital media. He is the author of ‘Islands on the Rocks’, a monograph on the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute between China and Japan. He is the creator of the India-China Trade dashboard, the Chinese Provincial Development Indicators dashboard and co-lead for the project ‘Episodes of India-China Exchanges: Modern Bridges and Resonant Connections’. He is co-convenor of ORCA’s annual conference, the Global Conference on New Sinology (GCNS) and co-editor of ORCA’s daily newsletter, Conversations in Chinese Media (CiCM). He was previously a Research Analyst at the Chennai Center for China Studies (C3S), working on China’s foreign policy and domestic politics. His work has been published in The Diplomat, 9 Dash Line, East Asia Forum, ISDP & Tokyo Review, among others. He is also the Director of ORCA Consultancy.