Health is important to economic development, and economic development has an important impact on health outcomes. Health Expenditure makes up a substantial part of the global economy. In the world, the costs of healthcare are increasing; patients are compelled to pay more for treatment, and that makes a lot of people faced to Catastrophic Health Expenditures (CHE) and in long run fall below the poverty line. One of the most urgent and vexing challenges faced by many low- and middle-income countries is how to provide health care for the more than two billion poor people who live in these areas (developing countries). As much as more than 65% (in 2014) of total private health care expenditure in low-income countries comes from out-of-pocket payment by patients. In addition, according to World Bank report (2007), in low and lower middle-income countries was speared nearly 13% of global health spending with 87% the global disease burden. The WHO considers health financing models with high risk pooled, such as health insurance and prepaid schemes, a promising means for achieving universal health-care coverage and promotion health care. A crucial concept in health financing is that of pooling. The WHO defines risk-pooling as the “accumulation and management of revenues in such a way as to ensure that the risk of having to pay for health care is borne by all members of the pool and not by each contributor individually”. The larger degree of pooling, the less people will have to bear the health financial risks. Furthermore, adopting and operating financing policies based on greeter risk pooling/sharing (prepayments) are recommended to all countries (especially in low and lower-middle income countries). It means risk sharing/pooling plays a key role in all financing systems for achieving effectiveness and efficiency health systems.
Risk Pooling Risk Sharing Health Care Financing Health Economics Low and Middle IncomeFinancial Support and Sponsorship
This study was approved and scientifically supported by the Tarbiat Modarres University (TMU), Tehran, Iran.
Conflict of Interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.
Biography
Ahangar A. (PhD Candidate in Health Economics, School of Economics and Management); Ahmadi A.A. (Corresponding Author, Assistant Professor, PhD, Economic Research Center (ERC); Mozayani A.H. (Associate Professor, PhD, Economic Research Center (ERC); Faraji Dizaji S. (Assistant Professor, PhD, School of Economics and Management), Tarbiat Modarres University (TMU), Tehran, Iran.
Cite this paper
Ahangar, A., Ahmadi, A.M., Mozayani, A.H. and Faraji Dizaji, S. (2018) Why Are Risk-Pooling and Risk-Sharing Arrangements Necessary for Financing Healthcare and Improving Health Outcomes in Low and Lower Middle-In- come Countries. Health, 10, 122-131. https://doi.org/10.4236/health.2018.101010
ReferencesAhangar, A., Ahmadi, A.M., Mozayani, A.H. and Faraji Dizaji, S. (2018) Transition of Health Financing Models and Cost Risk Sharing in the Health Sector: A Systematic Review. Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal. (In Publishing)Shigeoka, H. (2013) The Effect of Patient Cost Sharing on Utilization, Health, and Risk Protection. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper Series, No. 19726.Preker, A.S. and Carrin, G. (2004) Health Financing for Poor People Resource Mobilization and Risk Sharing. The World Bank, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Washington DC.World Health Organization (2000) The World Health Report 2000. Health Systems: Improving Performance. World Health Organization, Geneva.Murray, C.J.L., Xu, K., Evans, D., Klavus, J., Kawabata, K., Hanvoravongchai, P., et al. (2003) Assessing the Distribution of Household Financial Contributions to the Health System: Concepts and empirical Application. In: Murray, C.J.L. and Evans, D.B., Eds., Health System Performance Assessment (Debates, Methods and Empiricism), World Health Organization, Geneva, 565-572.Ahmadi, A.M., Maher, A. and Shokri, J.A. (2008) Survey of Different Approaches to Health System Financing in the Selected Countries during the Period 1998-2004 and Introducing New Financing Mechanisms for Iran. The Economic Research, 8, 149-155.Ahangar, A., Ahmadi, A.M., Mozayani, A.H. and Faraji Dizaji, S. (2018) The Assessment of Risk-Sharing in the Financing of the Health Sector and Health Outcomes; a Comparative Study across WHO’s Regions. PhD. Dissertation, Tarbiat Modarres University (TMU), Tehran.Smith, P.C. and Witter, S.N. (2004) Resource Allocation and Purchasing in Health: Value for Money, Reaching the, Poor Risk Pooling in Health Care Finance. World Bank, Centre for Health Economics, Washington DC.Savedoff, D.W., Carrin, G., Kawabata, K. and Mechbal, A. (2003) Monitoring the Health Financing Function. In: Murray, C.J.L. and Evans, D.B., Eds., Health System Performance Assessment (Debates, Methods and Empiricism), World Health Organization, Geneva, 211-219.Gallet, C.A. and Doucouliagos, H. (2017) The Impact of Healthcare Spending on Health Outcomes: A Metaregression Analysis. Social Science & Medicine, 179, 9-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.02.024Anyanwu, C.J. and Erhijakpor, E.O.A. (2007) Health Expenditures and Health Outcomes in Africa. African Development Bank Economic Research Working Paper No. 91. http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Knowledge/Novignon, J., et al. (2012) The Effects of Public and Private Health Care Expenditure on Health Status in Sub-Saharan Africa: New Evidence from Panel Data Analysis. Health Economics Review, 2, 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/2191-1991-2-22Akinci, F., Hamidi, S., Suvankulov, F. and Akhmedjonov, A. (2014) Examining the Impact of Health Care Expenditures on Health Outcomes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region. Journal of Health Care Finance, 41, 1-23. http://www.HealthFinanceJournal.comSafarani, S., Khatami Firouzabadi, S.M.A. and Ahangar, A. (2017) Supplier Selection for Serum and Syringe Using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods ELECTRE1, TOPSIS and Compared Them with VIKOR. Payavard Salamat, 11, 380-390.