Catastrophic Health Care, Poverty and Impoverishment in the Philippines

The paper attempts to describe catastrophic health spending and its impact to poverty in the Philippine setting. It focuses on the role of out-of-pocket payments for health care as a springboard in the analysis of measuring the magnitude and analyzing the extent of damage of catastrophic health expenditures. It also explores the scope and trends of these spending by different socioeconomic indicators such as household headship, agricultural indicator and regional group. More importantly, it delves into trends over time and among different income groups. It also employs several quantifiable measures and tools in determining the extent of “catastrophic” incidence and intensity to determine the effects on poverty. Lastly it looks into the state of impoverishment after incurring these payments. The results indicate that in general households belonging to higher income groups are more vulnerable to catastrophic health spending and households belonging to lower income groups are more prone to impoverishment.