Health shocks continue to pose a major threat to household welfare in developing countries. Drawing on a three%wave panel data set we examine how capable house% holds in Thailand and Vietnam are in insuring consumption against health shocks. We find that health shocks in Thailand as compared to Vietnam (i) cause lower medical consumption expenditures, (ii) have no effect on the change of non%medical consumption expenditures and (iii) that households are more capable of smoothing income fluctuations due to health shocks. We argue en detail that our findings are the direct outcome of different health care policies in the two countries.