Financial protection for the poor in Colombia: the effects of a subsidized health insurance scheme

Financial protection is one of the objectives of health systems, which protects poor households from falling into poverty as a result of health care related expenses. Expanding prepayment schemes to the poor is difficult in developing countries because labor is largely informal. Providing health care free-at-point-of-service does not adequately target spending on the poorest, but occupation- or community-based schemes have also inherent limitations to achieve universal coverage. Colombia adopted a government-subsidized health insurance scheme (SHI) strategy. The political debate about increasing SHI enrollment needs evidence about the effectiveness of this scheme regarding financial protection. This study runs a four-part model to estimate the effect of SHI on out-of-pocket expenses by the poor that are currently uninsured, if they were enrolled in the SHI. The results show a 43% and 50% reduction in expenses at Bogotá and national level respectively, which confirms the effectiveness of SHI as a financial protection tool.

• Fecha de publicación: 2015
• Institución: Universidad del Rosario
• Repositorio: Repositorio EdocUR - U. Rosario
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repository.urosario.edu.co:10336/10976
• Acceso en línea: https://doi.org/10.48713/10336_10976; http://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/10976
• Palabra clave: Problemas & servicios de bienestar social; Financial protection; subsidized insurance; out-of-pocket expenses; Colombia; Administración de servicios de salud; Pobreza::Aspectos Sociales; Salud pública; Análisis financiero::Aspectos Sociales; Seguridad social
• License: http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2