BACKGROUND This study examines health-related "hardship financing" in order to get better insights on how poor households finance their out-of-pocket healthcare costs. We define hardship financing as having to borrow money with interest or to sell assets to pay out-of-pocket healthcare costs. METHODS Using survey data of 5,383 low-income households in Orissa, one of the poorest states of Indi...

BACKGROUND As compared to other countries in South East Asia, India's health care system is characterized by very high out of pocket payments, and consequently low financial protection and access to care. This paper describes the relative importance of ill-health compared to other adverse events, the conduits through which ill-health affects household welfare and the coping strategies used to f...

Using micro-level household data in the 2001 Comprehensive Survey of the Living Conditions of the People on Health and Welfare compiled by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, this paper examines how having a household member in need of long-term nursing care can result in welfare losses measured in terms of consumption. In so doing, this study evaluates the role of the public lo...

We develop and estimate a model of supply response when transactions costs create a situation where some producers buy, others sell, and others do not participate in markets. We present two rationales for why producing households may have different relationships to the market: proportional and fixed transactions costs. Using data on Mexican corn producers, we estimate an empirical model that al...

Why the need for such a radical shift? Because in the past decade, employers’ health care costs have increased more than four times the inflation rate. The average U.S. household spends $15,300 a year for a family of four on health care. And, as a nation, we spend nearly 18 percent of the gross domestic product on health care. If we stay this course, the percentage of health care spending will ...

Healthy food is becoming increasingly expensive, and families on low incomes face a difficult financial struggle to afford healthy food. When food costs are considered, families on low incomes often face circumstances of poverty. Housing, utilities, health care, and transport are somewhat fixed in cost; however food is more flexible in cost and therefore is often compromised with less healthy, ...

BACKGROUND A gap in knowledge exists regarding the economic burden on households of subsidized anti-retroviral treatment (ART) programs in Nigeria. This is because patients also incur non-ART drug costs, which may constrain the delivery and utilisation of subsidized services. METHODS An exit survey of adults (18+years) attending health facilities for HIV/AIDS treatment was conducted in three ...

Rising health care costs and declining personal savings rates are nearly synonymous with household medical debt. For some, defined contribution (DC) retirement savings plans provide a ready source of funds to meet these medical debts. We examine whether health status and health insurance coverage predict the likelihood of having a DC loan using data from the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey o...