BACKGROUND Equitable financing is a key objective of health care systems. Its importance is evidenced in policy documents, policy statements, the work of health economists and policy analysts. The conventional categorisations of finance sources for health care are taxation, social health insurance, private health insurance and out-of-pocket payments. There are nonetheless increasing variations ...

Abstract Background In 2003, Ghana implemented a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) designed to promote universal health coverage and equitable access care. The scheme has largely been successful, yet it is confronted with many challenges threatening its sustainability. Out-of-pocket payments (OOP) by insured clients one of such the scheme. This study sought examine types services OOP char...

BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket spending is an important source of healthcare financing even in countries with established prepaid financing of healthcare. However, out-of-pocket payments (OOPP) may have undesirable effects from an equity perspective. In this study, we analyse the distributive effects of OOPP in Austria based on cross-sectional information from the Austrian Household Budget Survey 200...

BACKGROUND The importance of the Out-of-Pocket payments (OOP) for health, as well as the share of the household's income devoted to this purpose provide relevant information for the characterization of the health system. Chile has two coexisting alternative insurance systems (a public system called FONASA and a private system generically called ISAPRE or preventive health institutions), becomin...

Out-of-pocket (OOP) payments are the principal means of financing health care throughout much of Asia. We estimate the magnitude and distribution of OOP payments for health care in fourteen countries and territories accounting for 81% of the Asian population. We focus on payments that are catastrophic, in the sense of severely disrupting household living standards, and approximate such payments...

BACKGROUND In Switzerland, basic health insurance is mandatory for all inhabitants, but a rising number of insured have arrears in premium payments, potentially leading to coverage suspension. We aimed at characterizing insured with debt enforcement proceedings with respect to socio-demographic and health utilization aspects. METHODS Cross-sectional analysis of 508.000 insured with basic heal...

I n France, complementary health insurance, with the exception of CMU-C1 is privately funded. It covers health care and medical goods expenditures not covered by the Statutory Health Insurance scheme, also referred to as out-of-pocket (OOP) payments. Between 1980 and 2008, OOP payments increased from 217 € to 547 € per person per year, at comparative price levels2 (EcoSanté, Health Expenditure ...