title: Catastrophic Health Expenditures for Households with Disabled Members: Evidence from the Korean Health Panel.
abstract: Persons with disabilities use more health care services due to ill health and face higher health care expenses and burden. This study explored the incidence of catastrophic health expenditures of households with persons with disabilities compared to that of those without such persons. We used the Korean Health Panel (KHP) dataset for the years 2010 and 2011. The final sample was 5,610 households; 800 (14.3%) of these were households with a person with a disability and 4,810 (85.7%) were households without such a person. Households with a person with a disability faced higher catastrophic health expenditures, spending about 1.2 to 1.4 times more of their annual living expenditures for out-of-pocket medical expenses, compared to households without persons with disabilities. Households having low economic status and members with chronic disease were more likely to face catastrophic health expenditures, while those receiving public assistance were less likely. Exemption or reduction of out-of-pocket payments in the National Health Insurance and additional financial support are needed so that the people with disabilities can use medical services without suffering financial crisis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea .
authors.forename: Jeong-Eun
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6104-3168
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea .
authors.forename: Hyung-Ik
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8805-3104
authors.initials: HI
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, and Institute of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University Medical Research Center, Seoul, Korea .
authors.forename: Young Kyung
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5024-8264
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Do
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea .
authors.forename: Eun Joo
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2417-2416
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009313:National Health Programs; D016017:Odds Ratio; D056910:Republic of Korea
keywords: Catastrophic Health Expenditure; Disability; Household