Insuring Health or Insuring Wealth? An Experimental Evaluation of Health Insurance in Rural Cambodia

Abstract
We randomize the insurance premium for the SKY micro-health insurance program in rural Cambodia, allowing us to estimate the causal effects of health insurance on economic, health care utilization, and health outcomes. SKY insurance has its greatest impact on economic outcomes. SKY also changed health-seeking behavior, increasing the use of covered public facilities and decreasing the use of uncovered private care for major illnesses. As expected due to low statistical power, we did not find statistically significant impacts on health.