BACKGROUND Although numerous studies examine catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) worldwide, most focus on whole populations rather than specific vulnerable groups. This study analyzes the extent, associated factors and inequality of CHE in elderly household with chronic disease patients in China. METHODS Data were obtained from a nationally representative elderly household survey-the China...

BACKGROUND Public prescription drug plans vary markedly across Canada. To address perceived inequities in coverage across provinces, the February 2003 First Ministers' Accord on Health Care Renewal committed to ensuring that all Canadians have reasonable access to catastrophic drug coverage. A national standard for "reasonable" catastrophic coverage has yet to be formally defined. OBJECTIVE T...

background india’s health sector witnessed some major policy changes in 1990s that aimed at making health services more accessible to the population.   methods in this paper, i tried to present some preliminary results of the significant changes that occurred between 1995/6 and 2004, especially in relation to the question of access to healthcare for the poor and rural population using data from...

BACKGROUND Ghana since 2004, begun implementation of a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to minimize financial barriers to health care at point of use of service. Usually health insurance is expected to offer financial protection to households. This study aims to analyze the effect health insurance on household out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE), catastrophic expenditure (CE) and poverty. ...

BACKGROUND Globally, about 150 million people experience catastrophic healthcare expenditure services annually. Among low and middle income countries, out-of-pocket expenditure pushes about 100 million people into poverty annually. In Botswana, 83 % of the general population and 58 % of employed individuals do not have medical aid coverage. Moreover, inequity allocation of financial resources b...

The first evaluation of the Medical Insurance for a New Generation program (SMNG) was conducted in 2009. A mixed-method approach was used to obtain a comprehensive picture of SMNG members and the program itself. The evaluation comprised: 1) Program design; 2) Social and health conditions of its members; 3); Evaluation of SMNG's performance by measuring coverage, productivity and efficiency; 4) ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the comparability of out-of-pocket (OOP) payment and catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) estimates from different household surveys in India. METHODS Data on CHE, outpatient and inpatient OOP payments and other expenditure from all major national or multi-state surveys since 2000 were compared. These included two consumer expenditure surveys (the National Sample Survey f...