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This paper aims to evaluate the progressivity of health-care financing in Egypt by assessing all five financing sources individually and then combining them to analyze the equity of the whole financing system.

Lorenz dominance analysis and Kakwani progressivity index were applied on data from 2010/2011 Household Income, Expenditure, and Consumption Survey and the National Health Accounts 2011 using Stata to evaluate the progressivity of each source of health-care finance and the financing system overall.

The data show that Egypt’s health-care system, which is largely financed by out-of-pocket (OOP) payments, is slightly regressive, with an overall Kakwani index of −0.079. The overall regressive effect was the result of three regressive sources (OOP payments, an earmarked cigarette tax and direct taxes), one proportional finance source (social health insurance) and two slightly progressive sources (indirect taxes and private health insurance). This shows that the burden of financing health care falls more on the poor. These results signal the need for reform of health-care financing in Egypt to reduce dependence on OOP payments to achieve more equitable financing.

The paper seeks to augment the literature on health-care financing in Egypt by calculating specific progressivity estimates for all five sources of financing the Egyptian health-care system and analyzing the overall equity of this financing system. It will, therefore, provide a benchmark for monitoring the equity of finance in the Egyptian health-care system in future studies and allow one to assess the impact of implemented financing reforms in the future on the level of progressivity of health system financing.

In this paper, the authors assess the responsiveness of OOP healthcare expenditure to macro-fiscal factors, as well as to tax-based, SHI, mixed systems and voluntary PHI financing. Although the relationship between OOP expenditure, macroeconomy, aggregate public and PHI financing is well documented in the existing empirical literature, little is known for the impact of several macro-fiscal drivers and the existing health financing arrangements associated with voluntary PHI on OOP expenditure.

The authors gather panel data by applying three official organizations’ databases. They elaborate static and dynamic panel data methodology to a dataset of 49 European and OECD countries from 2000 to 2015.

The authors’ findings do not indicate a considerable impact of GDP growth and general government debt as a share of GDP on OOP payments. Unemployment rate presents as a positive driver of OOP payments in all three compulsory national health systems post to the 2008 economic crisis. OOP payments are significantly influenced by countries’ fiscal capacity to increase general government expenditure to GDP in SHI and mixed health systems. Additionally, study findings present that government health financing, irrespective of the different health systems structure characteristics, and OOP healthcare payments follow different directions. Voluntary PHI financing considerably counteracts OOP payments only in tax-based health systems.

In the backdrop of a new economic crisis associated to the COVID-19 epidemic, health policy planners have to deal with the emerging unprecedented challenges in financing of health systems, especially for these economies that have to face the fiscal capacity constraints owing to the 2008 financial crisis and its severe recession.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, there is no empirical consensus on the effects of macro-fiscal parameters, different compulsory health systems financing associated with the parallel voluntary PHI institution funding on OOP expenditure, for the majority of European and OECD settings.

Because of the 2008 global financial crisis aftermaths, economic downturn and prolonged recession, several OECD countries have adopted an austerity compound by significantly reducing public health expenditure (PHE) for dealing with their fiscal pressure and sovereign-debt challenges. Against this backdrop, this study aims to examine the responsiveness of PHE to macro-fiscal determinants, demography, as well to private health insurance (PHI) financing.

The authors gather annual panel data from four international organizations databases for the total of OECD countries from a period lasting from 2000 to 2017. The authors apply static and dynamic econometric methodology to deal with panel data and assess the impact of several parameters on PHE.

The authors’ findings indicate that gross domestic product, fiscal capacity, tax revenues and population aging have a positive effect on PHE. Further, the authors find that both unemployment rate and voluntary private health insurance financing present a negative statistically significant impact on our estimated outcome variable. Different specifications and sample periods applied in the regression models reveal how inseparably associated are PHE and OECD's economies compliance on macro-fiscal policies for offsetting public finances derailment.

Providing more evidence on the responsiveness of PHE to several macro-fiscal drivers, it can be a helpful tool for governments to reconsider their persistence on fiscal adjustments measures and rank public health financing to the top of their political agenda. Health systems policies for meeting Universal Health Coverage (UHC) objectives, they should also take into consideration the voluntary PHI institution, especially for economies with insufficient fiscal capacity to raise public health financing.

To the best of knowledge, the impact of unemployment and voluntary PHI funding on public health financing, apart from other macro-fiscal and demographical parameters effect, remains unnoticed in the existing published studies on the topic.

The financing of healthcare services has been of a major concern to all governments in the face of increasing healthcare costs. For developing countries, where good health is considered a poverty reduction strategy, it is imperative that the hospitals used in the delivery of healthcare services are well financed to accomplish their tasks. The purpose of this paper is to examine how public hospitals in Ghana are financed, and the challenges facing the financing modes adopted.

To achieve the objectives of the study, one major public healthcare institution in Ghana became the main focus.

The findings of the study revealed that the main sources of financing the public healthcare institution are government subvention, internally‐generated funds and donor‐pooled funds. Of these sources, the internally generated fund was regarded as the most reliable, and the least reliable was the donor‐pooled funds. Several challenges associated with the various financing sources were identified. These include delay in receipt of government subvention, delay in the reimbursement of services provided to subscribers of health insurance schemes, influence of government in setting user fees, and the specifications to which donor funds are put.

The findings of this study have important implications for improving the financing of public healthcare institutions in Ghana. A number of recommendations are provided in this regard.

Financing investments in a knowledge-intensive sector may be more difficult as there is a greater degree of uncertainty and asymmetries of information. This paper aims to examine whether a company’s intellectual capital (human capital, relational capital and structural capital) can serve as a quality signal in the financing of health care startups with new business models.

The study constructed a manual database using several paid and unpaid databases. This paper collected random data from 204 startups that obtained funding during the 2014–2017 period and used signaling theory to examine the factors that impact access to external financing for Indian health care technology startups.

This paper found that venture capitalists partly base their financing decisions on the relational capital of the startup represented by startups’ age and the average number of website visits, the presence of a syndicate of investors. Human capital variables and structural variables do not show much significant impact. This paper also find some business models show a negative impact on financing implying that investors are reluctant to invest in new technologies that carry more uncertainty and take a longer time to become profitable.

Before concluding this paper, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of the study and some implications for future research purposes. First, the study is conducted on only 204 startups from India, and as such, it suffers from a small sample size, like many other comparable survey-based studies in entrepreneurship. Second, the results are obtained with respect to data collected from Indian startups and represent the Indian context which limits the generalization on a global level.

The results suggest that years of experience and prior relevant experience, do not actually impact the financing of a new venture. These results are crucial as India has a unique demographic advantage over other countries in relation to age. If young minds are adequately nurtured, this can result in innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation (which still remains as a foremost challenge for India).

From a policy perspective, a number of implications emerge from the current study. There is a need for ameliorating the capacity of the education system in providing top-quality support including a greater focus on entrepreneurship courses and to replicate the education delivery model from top foreign institutes. The government should take this opportunity to revive the system of education and follow the methodology of elite institutes and to develop entrepreneurship spirit in other colleges and schools.

Financing the investments of young startups with new business models in knowledge-based sectors may be more difficult. In this paper, this paper demonstrates that startups have to effectively use and manage their intellectual assets to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. The findings of the paper emphasize the role of intellectual capital in securing financing through venture capital.

The unresolved crisis scenario and a prolonged COVID-19 pandemic increased social inequalities, mainly affecting the most vulnerable groups to access health services. The data in Pakistan show that health coverage benefits less than half of the population and a weak health system forces households to finance their health with out-of-pocket expenses. Therefore, it is a pending task to guarantee universal health coverage and design sustainable and inclusive policies to finance and provide health services. This study aims to offer a unique solution for health financing to Pakistan.

This study uses the VECM model by employing the data from Pakistan to indicate sustainable policies for health financing.

The results of this research show that direct taxes have a positive impact on public health expenditure; on the contrary, indirect taxes have a negative impact; it also confirms the importance of considering the direct tax based on high-income quintiles to guarantee equality and Access to health for all that contributes to human development.

This article leads to the design of a new health system that will be useful for improving the health of Pakistan by presenting a solution to enhance health financing. Meanwhile, Pakistan will experience better conditions in the face of health crises.

Improving health financing through the equality approach can provide public access to the health system and strengthen the positive effects of the health system on socio-economic relations.

This paper provides a unique solution for the ministry of health of Pakistan, International organisations and national authorities to reach a high level of health coverage without any cost to the financial system and increase the cost of living of the Pakistani people.

1. Increase efficient health financing by integrating health coverage programmes.

2. Implementing direct taxes based on income quintiles improves health equality.

3. Indirect tax policies will not positively contribute to health financing.

4. Improving health financing efficiency decreases health inequality.

Increase efficient health financing by integrating health coverage programmes.

Implementing direct taxes based on income quintiles improves health equality.

Indirect tax policies will not positively contribute to health financing.

Improving health financing efficiency decreases health inequality.

The purpose of this paper is to decompose the inequities induced by the Nigerian health care financing sources and their effect on the income distribution. Inequities in health care financing sources are of immense policy concern particularly in developing countries such as Nigeria, where high-level income inequality exists, and the cost of medical care is generally financed out-of-pocket (OOP) due to limited access to health insurance.

The Duclos et al. decomposition model provided the theoretical framework for the study. Data were obtained from two waves of the Nigeria General Household Survey (GHS) panel, 2012–13 and 2015–16. The analysis covered 3,999 households in 2012–13 and 4,051 households in 2015–16. Two measures of health care financing: OOP payment and health insurance contribution (HIC) were used. The ability to pay measure was household consumption expenditure.

The major inequity issue induced by the OOP payments was vertical inequity. HICs created the problems of vertical inequity, horizontal inequity and reranking among households. Overall both health care financing options were associated with the worsening of income inequality both at the national and sectorial levels in the country. The operations of the NHIS need to be improved to ensuring improved health care coverage for the poor.

This paper fulfills an identified need to determine the income redistributive effects (REs) of the social health insurance (SHI) contribution at the national, urban and rural locations overtime.

Health Sector Evolution Plan (HSEP) is known as the biggest and most comprehensive reform in Iran’s health system. One of the goals of HSEP is to reduce inequity in the healthcare financing. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate HSEP agenda setting from the perspective of equity in healthcare financing (EHCF) using the multiple streams model.

This qualitative study was conducted by 26 documents review and analysis, and 30 semi-structured interview with Iranian key informants in the field of HSEP that were selected based on purposeful and snowball sampling method. Data were collected using a researcher-made checklist based on the goals. All audio-taped interviews were transcribed and analyzed thematically. Data management and analysis were performed using the framework analysis in MAXQDA software.

The framework analysis identified 12 complementary sub-themes totally. Problem stream included four sub-themes (high share of Out Of Pocket, high index of catastrophic health expenditures, low EHCF index, and inappropriate economic state and sanctions). Focus on EHCF in general policies of the Iran World Health Organization’s report in 2000, the Targeted Subsidies Law and emphasis on equalizing healthcare financing in the Fourth and Fifth Development Plan were considered as policy stream sub-themes. Finally, political stream showed four sub-themes including strong support from the Minister of Health for HSEP, mass media, the pressure of WHO and people’s request to reduce health costs.

The limitations of the present study included paying attention to one package (evolution in the treatment sector) of three health packages to assess EHCF, as well as the lack of similar national and international evidence in implementation framework.

The results of this study can be used to analyze other health sector reforms around the word and can help the formulation and implementation of most practical reforms, especially in field of health system financing.

This study gives a holistic view about health system policy setting that can be used for understanding policy-making streams to population.

This is the first study that has examined HSEP (the biggest health sector reform in Iran) from the perspective of agenda setting. In addition, using the popular and well-known Kingdon’s model to explain HSEP agenda setting is one of the strengths of this study. Furthermore, taking advantage of a wide range of related views by including highly informed people increased the strength of the results of the study. In addition, the short interval between the interview and reviewing the results on reforms reduced the recall bias of the participants in the study.

The empirical analysis dealt in this paper emphasizes on the impact of military expenditures on out of pocket (OOP) healthcare payments. A sizeable body of defence economics literature has investigated the trade-off between military and public health expenditure, by testing the crowding-out or growth-stimulating hypothesis; does military expenditure scaling up crowd-out or promote governmental resources for social and welfare programs, including also state health financing?

In this study, panel data from 2000 to 2018 for 129 countries is used to examine the impact of military expenditure on OOP healthcare payments. The dataset of countries is categorized into four income-groups based on World Bank's income-group classification. Dynamic panel data methodology is applied to meet study objectives.

The findings of this study indicate that military expenditure positively affects OOP payments in all the selected groups of countries, strongly supporting in this way the crowding-out hypothesis whereby increased military expenditure reduces the public financing on health. Study econometric results are robust since different and alternative changes in specifications and samples are applied in our analysis.

Under the economic downturn backdrop for several economies in the previous decade and on the foreground of a potential limited governmental fiscal space related to the Covid-19 pandemic adverse economic effects, this study provides evidence that policy-makers have to adjust their government policy initiatives and prioritize Universal Health Coverage objectives. Consequently, the findings of this study reflect the necessity of governments as far as possible to moderate military expenditures and increase public financing on health in order to strengthen health care systems efficiency against households OOP spending for necessary healthcare utilization.

Despite the fact that a sizeable body of defence economics literature has extensively examined the impact of military spending on total and public health expenditures, nevertheless to the best of our knowledge there is no empirical evidence of any direct effect of national defence spending on the main private financing component of health systems globally; the OOP healthcare payments.

The purpose of this article is to explore the feasibility of introducing a social health insurance (SHI) scheme in Uganda from the perspectives of a targeted population of respondents in Kampala, Uganda.

Out of 100 questionnaires distributed to a random sample of Ugandans, 74 were returned, yielding a 74 percent response rate.

Results show that all Ugandans surveyed support the introduction of SHI. Some are willing to contribute financially and most believe that the Ugandan government should make this benefit available to all Ugandans. While there is a great deal of support for introducing SHI, several respondents noted that cost sharing, in whatever form taken, is burdensome on people with lower incomes and has disastrous consequences for the delivery and utilization of health services among the poor.

A larger study exploring Ugandans' perspectives may provide valuable information on how Africans can begin to design a workable health financing structure to promote better access to health care for the most vulnerable groups in society.