Document Type : Short Communication(s)
Authors
1 Associate Professor, Economics, Shahed University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
2 MSc, Health Economics, Shahed University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Introduction: In order to fulfill the health and medical needs of rural people, Iran's Medical Services Insurance Organization approved a plan to provide rural health insurance in 2005. The plan aimed to make an appropriate context for the activities of private health care service providers in the rural areas and to meet public expectations for access to specialized medical services. In this study, rural health insurance was evaluated using the general justice index.Methods: This was a analytical study which used the comparative method to assess rural health insurance scheme based on general justice. The study compared the average health and medical costs of rural families in three different provinces in 2004 (the year before the project), 2006 and 2007 (after the plan was implemented).Results: Although the rural health insurance plan was expected to significantly lower the average health and medical costs of rural households (as an index to assess the project based on general justice), our results did not reveal such a reduction.Conclusion: A major expectation from the rural health insurance plan was to improve rural general justice. However, this study could not confirm a significant improvement in general justice due to implementation of the plan.Keywords: Insurance, Health; Social Insurance; Rural Health Services; Justice.
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