Health Cooperative and Insurance:Peoples Willingness to Pay Through Cooperative Model in Nepal

HEALTH COOPERATIVE AND INSURANCE: PEOPLE’S WILLINGNESS TO PAY THROUGH COOPERATIVE MODEL IN NEPAL

BACKGROUND: Health insurance is often talked but less is done in Nepal. As the government agenda plan is to implement health insurance, the existing model need to be reviewed. Cooperative model of insurance has been implemented in three districts of Nepal since 2000. The objective was to determine the willingness to pay (WTP) cooperative health insurance in Nepal.

METHODOLOGY: Data regarding the Knowledge, satisfaction, Net benefit and amount of WTP were collected as the determinant of WTP. 91 out of 110 household were interviewed in highway health cooperative,Dhading and women health cooperative, Lalitpur,Nepal.Bidding game method was used for determining the amount of WTP.Data were analyzed using the SPSS with the aid of Pearson test, odds ratio, chi-square test.

RESULTS: The mean amount of WTP was expressed was Rs 413 with mean consumer surplus Rs 13.There exists positive relation between amount of WTP and net benefit (r=0.43,p=0.01).significant difference were observed between the amount of WTP and satisfaction(p=0.02) and Net benefit and satisfaction(p=0.08).But there was no significant difference between the amount of WTP and knowledge level. There was significant,positive modest association between amount of WTP and annual income in both, highway (r=0.32,p=0.02) and women (r=0.45,p=0.01).Variables that reflect the economic factors i.e., income, net benefit were significant determinants of amount of WTP than the social factors except gender and educational factors.

CONCLUSION: The mean consumer surplus was sufficient to meet the market price of insurance. Grater the Net benefit, higher the satisfaction, thus leading the higher amount of WTP.The economic factors were major determinant for the amount of WTP.

RECOMMENDATION: The benefit package should be increased especially forming the satellite clinic of referral centre at local level. Income generating works should be incorporated with the cooperative to increase WTP amount.