Community-Based Health Insurance Enrollment and Determinants in Addis Ababa: Insights from Behavioral Economics and Discrete Choice Experiments

Abstract

Community-based health insurance target those employed in the rural and informal sector in urban by pooling risks and protect households from out-of-pocket expenditures when receiving health facility services. However, Ethiopian community-based health insurance is schemes characterized by low enrollment. The aim of this study is to analyze the determinants of community-based health insurance enrollment in Addis Ababa from behavioral economics and discrete choice experiment insights. A total of 222 households from ten pilot woredas were selected for the study using a simple random sampling technique. A simple social experiment is used to examine the significance of behavioral biases. A discrete choice experiment conducted across three attributes and conditional logit model used to determine the relative importance of the selected attributes and willingness-to-pay for those attributes. In addition, the binary logit regression model is used to estimate the probability of households enrollment in community-based health insurance. The study result indicates that households have the highest willingness to pay for only private health service providers (Birr 1849.6/year) compared to status-quo level. Non-member households’ willingness to pay for comprehensive health service package Birr 2271.7/year. Moreover, this study revealed loss-aversion bias, over-optimistic bias, and herding bias had significantly affected the household decision on community-based health insurance enrollment. The study suggests that behavioral biases affect Community-based health insurance enrollment. The study finding also reveals that respondent households are willingness to pay more for comprehensive health service package and for health insurance scheme that includes private health service providers. In addition, the study concludes eligible household enrollment decision varied based on their socio-demographic and household characteristic. This study recommends the need to consider mandatory community-based health insurance schemes and apply targeting intervention (coverage) to the particular group.