Improved estimates of Belgian private health expenditure can give important lessons to other OECD countries

High Out-of-Pocket Medical Spending among the Poor and Elderly in Nine Developed Countries

OBJECTIVE

The design of health insurance, and the role out-of-pocket (OOP) payments play in it, is a key policy issue as rising health costs have encouraged greater cost-sharing measures. This paper compares the percentage of Americans spending large amounts OOP to meet their health needs with percentages in eight other developed countries. By disaggregating by age and income, the paper focuses on the poor and elderly populations within each.

DATA SOURCE

The study uses nationally representative household survey data made available through the Luxembourg Income Study. It includes nations with high, medium, and low levels of OOP spending.

STUDY DESIGN

Households have high medical spending when their OOP expenditures exceed a threshold share of income. I calculate the share of each nation's population, as well as subpopulations within it, with high OOP expenditures.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

The United States is not alone in exposing large numbers of citizens to high OOP expenses. In six of the other eight countries, one-quarter or more of low-income citizens devoted at least 5 percent of their income to OOP expenses, and in all but two countries, more than 1 in 10 elderly citizens had high medical expenses.

CONCLUSIONS

For some populations in the sample nations, health insurance does not provide adequate financial protection and likely contributes to inequities in health care delivery and outcomes.

How to ensure quality of health accounts

Policy makers need up-to-date and reliable information to formulate health policies and monitor their implementation. Given that financing is one of the pillars of the health system, quality of financing data is essential. Quality is a key element but difficult to measure. Increasing quality on financing data involves the use of standard procedures and methods. Current standard framework, the System of Health Accounts 2011, needs to be implemented with checks and controls on the individual as well as aggregated data. Data input on the construction of the accounts and their related metadata are subject to quality measures. In this paper we address a first proposal of the components of the quality in health accounts reporting. The paper assesses Quality Of Health Accounts at four stages: (1) Design; (2) Development; (3) Management; and (4) Reporting. It explains what is needed at each stage to ensure reliable results which are fit for informing decision-making. Quality is essential for reliability and trust among all stakeholders, who are responsible of data provision, construction of the accounts and using their results. Quality measurement in health accounts is a reality needing effort.

The incidence of high medical expenses by health status in seven developed countries

Health care policy seeks to ensure that citizens are protected from the financial risk associated with needing health care. Yet rising health care costs in many countries are leading to a greater reliance on out-of-pocket (OOP) measures. This paper uses 2010 household survey data from seven countries to measure and compare the burden OOP expenses place on individuals. It compares countries based on the extent to which citizens with health problems devote a large share of their income to OOP expenses. The paper finds that in all countries but France, and to a lesser extent Slovenia, citizens with health problems face considerably higher medical costs than do those without. As many as one-quarter of less healthy citizens in the US, Poland, Russia and Israel devote a large share of their income to OOP expenses. The paper also finds a strong cross-national correlation between the degree to which citizens face high OOP expenses, and the disparities in OOP expenses between those with and without health problems. The levels of high OOP spending uncovered, and their inequitable impact on those with health problems in the seven countries, underscore the potential for OOP measures to undermine core objectives of health care systems, including those of equitable financing, equal access, and improved health among the population.