Health Transition before and after 1995 Health Reform in Taiwan

Chi-Tsun Chiu, University of Texas at Austin
Meng-Fan Li, Shih Chien University

We examine the effect of health reform in 1995 in Taiwan on health transition among the elderly Taiwanese, including functioning, disability and death by employing a nationally representative longitudinal survey, the “Survey of Health and Living Status of the Middle Aged and Elderly in Taiwan” for analyses. This study ran hazard models over 3 to 4 years to analyze changes from no physical function problem to having difficulty in physical functioning, no ADL/IADL problem to disability, and alive to dead. We found the higher-education benefited from national health insurance (NHI) more than the lower-education to get better mortality outcome. Because the higher-education were more likely to know when the new technology/medicine were available and covered by NHI. As for disability and physical functioning, our study showed that NHI helped to eliminate the income gap by allowing the lower income groups to have better access to health care after health reform.