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.
Rahul Karan Reddy is a 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 about the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute between China and Japan. Rahul was previously a research analyst at the Chennai Center for China Studies (C3S). He is the creator of the India-China Trade dashboard and the Chinese Provincial Development Indicators dashboard. His work has been published in The Diplomat, East Asia Forum, ISDP & Tokyo Review, among others. He can be reached via email at rahulkaran.reddy@gmail.com and @RahulKaranRedd1 on Twitter.
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