Who pays for health care in Asia?
We estimate the distributional incidence of health care financing in 13 Asian territories that account for 55% of the Asian population. In all territories, higher-income households contribute more to the financing of health care. The better-off contribute more as a proportion of ability to pay in most low- and lower-middle-income territories. Health care financing is slightly regressive in three high-income economies with universal social insurance. Direct taxation is the most progressive source of finance and is most so in poorer economies. In universal systems, social insurance is proportional to regressive. In high-income economies, the out-of-pocket (OOP) payments are proportional or regressive while in low-income economies the better-off spend relatively more OOP. But in most low-/middle-income countries, the better-off not only pay more, they also get more health care.
O'Donnell
Owen
O
Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia Street, Thessaloniki 54006, Greece. ood@uom.gr
van Doorslaer
Eddy
E
Rannan-Eliya
Ravi P
RP
Somanathan
Aparnaa
A
Adhikari
Shiva Raj
SR
Akkazieva
Baktygul
B
Harbianto
Deni
D
Garg
Charu C
CC
Hanvoravongchai
Piya
P
Herrin
Alejandro N
AN
Huq
Mohammed N
MN
Ibragimova
Shamsia
S
Karan
Anup
A
Kwon
Soon-man
SM
Leung
Gabriel M
GM
Lu
Jui-fen Rachel
JF
Ohkusa
Yasushi
Y
Pande
Badri Raj
BR
Racelis
Rachel
R
Tin
Keith
K
Tisayaticom
Kanjana
K
Trisnantoro
Laksono
L
Wan
Quan
Q
Yang
Bong-Min
BM
Zhao
Yuxin
Y
D001208:Asia; D017047:Cost Sharing; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D005382:Financing, Personal; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006801:Humans; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors