BACKGROUND Subsidizing healthcare costs through insurance schemes is crucial to overcome financial barriers to health care and to avoid high medical expenditures for patients in China. The health insurance could decrease financial risk by less out-of-pocket (OOP) payment, but not promise the protection equity. With the growth of New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) financing and coverage since...

conclusions considering iran’s economic condition during the last five years, the catastrophic health expenditure headcount ratio was more than 2% in iran. materials and methods this descriptive study on iranian rural and urban households was conducted from april to june 2015. the sample sizes were 19437 rural and 18888 urban households that iranian statistical centre (isc) selected them throug...

BACKGROUND One common challenge to social systems is achieving equity in financial contributions and preventing financial loss. Because of the large and unpredictable nature of some costs, achieving this goal in the health system presents important and unique problems. The present study investigated the Household Financial Contributions (HFCs) to the health system. METHODS The study investiga...

background : one of the criteria of health equity is having health insurance coverage. construction workers and their families are one of the most vulnerable populations regarding diseases and accidents. thus, this study was conducted with the aim to determine the utilization rate of health services among construction workers ‎and their families. methods: in this descriptive-analytical study, t...

OBJECTIVES While the benefits of Seguro Popular health insurance in Mexico relative to no insurance have been widely documented, little has been reported on its effects relative to the pre-existing Social Security health insurance. We analyse the effects of Social Security and Seguro Popular health insurances in Mexico on access to healthcare of older adults, and on financial risk protection to...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the incidence and describe the profile of catastrophic expenditures and impoverishment due to household out-of-pocket payments, comparing the periods before and after the introduction of universal health care coverage (UC). METHODS Secondary data analyses of socioeconomic surveys on nationally representative households pre-UC in 2000 (n = 24,747) and post-UC in 2002 (n =...

BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket payments in health care have been shown to impose significant burden on households in Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to constrained access to health care and impoverishment. In an effort to reduce the financial burden imposed on households by user fees, some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have abolished user fees in the health sector. Zambia is one of few countries in Sub...

BACKGROUND Universal health coverage through the removal of financial and other barriers to access, particularly for people who are poor, is a global priority. This viewpoint describes the many pathways to catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) for patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) based on two case studies and the thematic analysis of field notes regarding 210 patients and their house...