Inequalities in the benefits of national health insurance on financial protection from out-of-pocket payments and access to health services: cross-sectional evidence from Ghana.

ABSTRACT: A central pillar of universal health coverage (UHC) is to achieve financial protection from catastrophic health expenditure. There are concerns, however, that national health insurance programmes with premiums may not benefit impoverished groups. In 2003, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to introduce a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) with progressively structured premium charges. In this study, we test the impact of being insured on utilization and financial risk protection compared with no enrolment, using the 2012-13 Ghana Living Standards Survey (n = 72 372). Consistent with previous studies, we observed that participating in health insurance significantly decreased the probability of unmet medical needs by 15 percentage points (p.p.) and that of incurring cata

SUBMITTER: Fiestas Navarrete L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6880330 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature