The health inequities remain high in India with government and private health expenditures clearly favoring the rich, urban population and organized sector workers and the Out Of Pocket (OOP) spending as high as 80%, afflicting the poor in the worst manner. The focus of the paper is to examine the potential Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) offers to improve the healthcare access to rural...

BACKGROUND In India, Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and injuries account for an estimated 62% of the total age-standardized burden of forgone Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). Public and private financing of clinical services to reduce the NCD burden is a major challenge. METHODS We used National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) survey data from 1995-96 and 2004 covering nearly 200 t...

OBJECTIVE A rapid survey was carried out in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar District of Punjab state in India to ascertain health seeking behavior and out-of-pocket health expenditures. METHODS Using multistage cluster sampling design, 1,008 households (28 clusters x 36 households in each cluster) were selected proportionately from urban and rural areas. Households were selected through a house-to...

Introduction: Reliance on out-of-pockets (OOP) payments for health services has continued to hamper access quality healthcare across Nigeria. Socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the gender household head as it influences impacts shocks OOP have received very little attention globally. This study investigated perspective shocks, expenditures coping mechanisms in North Central...

BACKGROUND The goal of universal health coverage (UHC) requires inter alia that families who get needed health care do not suffer undue financial hardship as a result. This can be measured by the percentage of people in households whose out-of-pocket health expenditures are large relative to their income or consumption. We aimed to estimate the global incidence of catastrophic health spending, ...

The global financial crisis of 2008 has led to the reinforcement of patient cost sharing in health care policy. This study aimed to explore the impact of direct out-of pocket payments (OOPs) on health care utilization and the resulting financial burden across income groups under the South Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) program with universal population coverage. We used the fourth Korea...

OBJECTIVE To analyze household health expenditures on children who are beneficiaries of the Medical Insurance for a New Generation (SMNG), program created in 2007 to cover healthcare costs of children without social security born after December 1st, 2006. MATERIALS AND METHODS Using the SMNG National Survey, out-the-pocket and catastrophic spending on child health were calculated using severa...