Expanding Health Insurance for the Elderly of the Philippines

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This paper evaluates a Filipino policy that expanded health insurance coverage of its senior citizens, aged 60 and older, in 2014. Using regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences methods, the study finds that the expansion increases insurance coverage by approximately 16-percentage points. Compliers induced by the policy to obtain insurance are disproportionately female and largely from the middle of the socioeconomic distribution. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that out-of-pocket medical expenditures more than double among the compliers. The study also argues that this is most likely driven by an outward shift in the medical demand curve.