| dc.description.abstract | This study focuses on the impact of debt incurred during adolescence on the ability to repay debt in adulthood. It has been found from actual cases that minors with unpaid health insurance premiums may continue to accumulate more debt into adulthood and face administrative enforcement procedures. Compared to minors without unpaid premiums, those who face the pressure of health insurance debt as soon as they reach adulthood may exhibit different payment behaviors. Therefore, this study explores the impact of adolescent debt on the ability to repay debt in adulthood, using Taiwan’s health insurance premium payment behavior as an example.
To understand the impact of unpaid health insurance premiums during adolescence on payment behavior in adulthood, this study sets up two opposing hypotheses: 1) Unpaid health insurance premiums during adolescence have a negative correlation with unpaid premiums in adulthood, and 2) Unpaid health insurance premiums during adolescence have a positive correlation with unpaid premiums in adulthood. This study uses health insurance data from 2007 to 2022, with average cumulative unpaid premiums in adulthood as the dependent variable, and unpaid premiums during adolescence, personal characteristics, and parental characteristics as independent variables. Four linear regression models and four logistic regression models were constructed, and descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and linear and logistic regression analyses were conducted to verify whether unpaid premiums during adolescence have a positive or negative correlation with unpaid premiums in adulthood.
Statistical results indicate a positive correlation between unpaid premiums during adolescence and those in adulthood. Higher unpaid premiums during adolescence are associated with higher average unpaid premiums in adulthood. Linear regression model results show that the unpaid premiums in adulthood for those with high unpaid premiums during adolescence are more than double those of the low unpaid premiums group. In logistic regression results, the odds ratios are greater than 1, indicating that those with high unpaid premiums during adolescence are more likely to have high unpaid premiums in adulthood compared to those with low unpaid premiums during adolescence. This demonstrates that carrying health insurance debt during adolescence indeed affects the ability to repay health insurance debt in adulthood. In addition to the aforementioned models, this study also uses the difference in cumulative unpaid premiums between adulthood and adolescence as the dependent variable to further confirm whether individuals repay their debt. The empirical results show that those with high unpaid premiums during adolescence repay more debt than those with low unpaid premiums.
This study confirms that high unpaid health insurance premiums during adolescence increase unpaid premiums in adulthood, thereby affecting economic capacity and highlighting social inequality. Therefore, this study presents two policy recommendations. First, it is recommended to clarify the responsibilities and obligations of legal guardians in the National Health Insurance Act to prevent minors from bearing health insurance premiums. Specifically, regulations should be amended to stipulate that the responsibility for paying premiums for minors falls on the legal guardian, and administrative enforcement should be conducted in the name of the legal guardian to protect minors from public debt recovery. Legal guardians should also fulfill their obligation to provide for the essential living expenses of minors.
Secondly, the study finds that subsidizing health insurance for those in the high unpaid premiums group during adolescence can help reduce cumulative unpaid premiums. It is recommended that the National Health Insurance Administration utilize insurance data to monitor high-risk families, such as those with incarcerated family members or deceased parents, and initiate social care network notifications. Through the care of village heads or social workers, families of deceased or incarcerated individuals can receive timely assistance or seek social resources to maintain family functionality. Priority should be given to subsidizing those identified through these notifications. | en_US |