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View all search results2014 JKN rollout dented private insurance uptake, ANU study finds
New research findings presented on Wednesday suggest that private health insurance has been losing out to the national scheme over the last dozen years and may require intervention to avoid stagnation.
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An employee (left) of the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) distributes information about the National Health Insurance (JKN) during Car Free Day on Aug. 10, 2025 as part of the agency’s Mobile Customer Service initiative in Ternate, North Maluku. (Antara/Andri Saputra)
T
he National Health Insurance (JKN) program has reduced private health insurance uptake among households, according to a new study presented at a policy session on Wednesday.
Private health insurance enrollment fell around 30 percent following the JKN rollout in 2014, indicating a strong “crowding out” effect in the market, research conducted under the Australian National University (ANU) Indonesia Project has found.
“JKN looks like a superior product on almost every dimension for the average household, which is the substitution mechanism we expect to drive crowd-out,” Giovanni van Empel, an ANU health and medicine research fellow, said during the online presentation.
The decline was accompanied by higher hospital utilization as well as a drop in visits to primary care facilities such as Puskesmas (community health centers). Researchers attributed the puzzling outcome to patients opting to seek specialist care directly, only using primary care facilities to obtain referral letters or bypassing them altogether.
The study, which used data from the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) of Statistics Indonesia (BPS) during the decade between 2009 and 2018, found that JKN acted as a close substitute rather than a complement to private insurance. This was particularly so among middle-income households, which experienced a sharp drop in coverage effectiveness relative to premium price after the rollout.
JKN monthly premiums range from Rp 42,000 (US$2.50) to Rp 150,000 per person, with partial subsidies for the lowest policy tier.
“With lower premiums, broader benefits and no risk-based pricing, JKN is superior to most private plans on nearly all dimensions,” said van Empel.
