TThe Impact of Universal Coverage on Health Consumption and Preventive Activities: The case of Thailand

The objective of this paper is to investigate whether the UC scheme in Thailand was associated to significant changes in the health consumptions and preventive activities of the general population. In order to isolate the impact of the UC reform on the variables of interest and to rule out other effects from long-run relation, we focus our analysis on the period just before and the period just after the introduction of the UC. The data are drawn from the 2001 and 2003 rounds of the Health and Welfare Survey (HWS). A differences in differences approach with Kernel matching was used, defining people working in the informal sector as the treatment group. Results show that: 1) preventive activities increased, 2) Inpatient care use increased, 2) outpatient care use was unaffected by the UC, 4) there was a switch from traditional to formal medicine. Furthermore, we find a significant reduction in out-of-pocket expenditure. Results show no clear sign of Moral Hazard and opportunistic behavior and confirm that the Thai UC as a successful story.