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This paper investigates the extent to which the health systems of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Kosovo) have succeeded in providing financial protection against adverse health events. The authors examine disparities in health status, healthcare utilization, and out-of-pocket payments for healthcare (including informal payments), and explore the impact of healthcare expenditures on household economic status and poverty. Methodologies include (i) generating a descriptive assessment of health and healthcare disparities across socioeconomic groups, (ii) measuring the incidence and intensity of catastrophic healthcare payments, (iii) examining the effect of out-of-pocket payments on poverty headcount and poverty gap measures, and (iv) running sets of country-specific probit regressions to model the relationship between health status, healthcare utilization, and poverty. On balance, the findings show that the impact of health expenditures on household economic wellbeing and poverty is most severe in Albania and Kosovo, while Montenegro is striking for the financial protection that the health system seems to provide. Data are drawn from Living Standards and Measurement Surveys.

Alternative Medicine --- Health Care --- Health Monitoring and Evaluation --- Health Services --- Health Systems Development and Reform --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Hospitalization --- Hospitals --- Medicines --- Morbidity --- Nurses --- Nutrition --- Outpatient Care

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In 2003, after over 20 years of minimal health insurance coverage in rural areas, China launched a heavily subsidized voluntary health insurance program for rural residents. The authors use program and household survey data, as well as health facility census data, to analyze factors affecting enrollment into the program and to estimate its impact on households and health facilities. They obtain estimates by combining differences-in-differences with matching methods. The authors find some evidence of lower enrollment rates among poor households, holding other factors constant, and higher enrollment rates among households with chronically sick members. The household and facility data point to the scheme significantly increasing both outpatient and inpatient utilization (by 20-30 percent), but they find no impact on utilization in the poorest decile. For the sample as a whole, the authors find no statistically significant effects on average out-of-pocket spending, but they do find some-albeit weak-evidence of increased catastrophic health spending. For the poorest decile, by contrast, they find that the scheme increased average out-of-pocket spending but reduced the incidence of catastrophic health spending. They find evidence that the program has increased ownership of expensive equipment among central township health centers but had no impact on cost per case.

Child Development --- Children --- Clinics --- Families --- Health --- Health Care --- Health Monitoring and Evaluation --- Health Outcomes --- Health Services --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Hospitals --- Implementation --- Medicines --- Mortality --- Outpatient Care --- Patients --- Public Health --- Quality Control --- Risks --- Strategy --- Weight --- Workers

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Financial barriers to seeking care are frequently cited as one of the main causes of underutilization of child health care services. This paper estimates the impact of Indonesia's healthcard on health care use by children. Evaluation of the healthcard effect is complicated by the fact that card allocation was non-random. The analysis uses propensity score matching to control for systematic differences between treatment and control groups. A second potential source of bias is related to contemporaneous, exogenous influences on health care use unrelated to the healthcard itself. Using panel data collected prior to and after the introduction of the healthcard, a difference-in-differences estimator is constructed to eliminate the effects of exogenous changes over time. The author finds that although health care use declined for all children during the crisis years of 1997-2000, use of public sector outpatient services declined much less for children with healthcards. The protective effect of the healthcard on public sector use was concentrated among children aged 0-5 years. The healthcard had no significant impact on use of private sector services. The results highlight the need to provide adequate protection against the financial burden of health care costs, particularly during economic crises.

Child health services --- Health Care --- Health Monitoring and Evaluation --- Health services --- Health Systems Development and Reform --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Intervention --- Nutrition --- Outpatient care --- Patients --- Pill --- Public health --- Unemployment

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In 2003, after over 20 years of minimal health insurance coverage in rural areas, China launched a heavily subsidized voluntary health insurance program for rural residents. The authors use program and household survey data, as well as health facility census data, to analyze factors affecting enrollment into the program and to estimate its impact on households and health facilities. They obtain estimates by combining differences-in-differences with matching methods. The authors find some evidence of lower enrollment rates among poor households, holding other factors constant, and higher enrollment rates among households with chronically sick members. The household and facility data point to the scheme significantly increasing both outpatient and inpatient utilization (by 20-30 percent), but they find no impact on utilization in the poorest decile. For the sample as a whole, the authors find no statistically significant effects on average out-of-pocket spending, but they do find some-albeit weak-evidence of increased catastrophic health spending. For the poorest decile, by contrast, they find that the scheme increased average out-of-pocket spending but reduced the incidence of catastrophic health spending. They find evidence that the program has increased ownership of expensive equipment among central township health centers but had no impact on cost per case.

Child Development --- Children --- Clinics --- Families --- Health --- Health Care --- Health Monitoring and Evaluation --- Health Outcomes --- Health Services --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Hospitals --- Implementation --- Medicines --- Mortality --- Outpatient Care --- Patients --- Public Health --- Quality Control --- Risks --- Strategy --- Weight --- Workers

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Nervous System Diseases --- Ambulatory Care. --- diagnosis. --- therapy. --- Clinic Visits --- Health Services, Outpatient --- Outpatient Services --- Services, Outpatient Health --- Urgent Care --- Outpatient Care --- Outpatient Health Services --- Care, Ambulatory --- Care, Outpatient --- Care, Urgent --- Cares, Urgent --- Clinic Visit --- Health Service, Outpatient --- Outpatient Health Service --- Outpatient Service --- Service, Outpatient --- Service, Outpatient Health --- Services, Outpatient --- Urgent Cares --- Visit, Clinic --- Visits, Clinic --- Outpatient Clinics, Hospital --- Outpatients