The Impact of Insurance on Prevalence, Diagnosis and Management of Disease in Mexico

Kristy Gonzalez, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Health insurance is often cited as a policy instrument with the capacity to improve health status by decreasing cost and increasing access to medical care. However, research investigating the impact of insurance on health status in developing countries is limited. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of insurance on adult morbidity in Mexico using diabetes and hypertension as examples. The effect of insurance on prevalence, diagnosis and management of disease will be analyzed using data from the Mexican National Health Survey 2000. Existing research is limited by disease measures and failure to test and control for the potential endogeneity of insurance. This study offers two contributions: 1) the use of unique data including individual’s knowledge of disease status and measures of blood glucose and blood pressure and 2) the testing and attempt to control for the potential endogeneity of insurance through the use of instrumental variables.