The capacity of people to pay for health services is a barrier to the access to health care, and catastrophic health costs impoverish people in many settings. In most high-income countries, this is not a significant problem because they have social health insurance schemes and essentially offer health insurance to all of their people. However, the lack of financial protection is a common problem in poorer countries. Studies in India have shown, for example, that expenditure of health is a leading cause of families falling below the poverty line and major cause of families selling assets to pay their bills for health care. Although the evidence is of poor quality and mixed, some studies have shown a decline in the use of tuberculosis medicines and hospital deliveries of babies when charges were levied on these services.
Peters, D.H., Preker, A. Yazbek. A.S Sharma, R. R., Ramana, G.N. V., Pritchett, L. H., Wagstaff A. (2002). Better health systems for India’s poor. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Lagarde, M., & Palmer, N (2011). The impact of user fees on access to health services in low-and middle-income countries (Review). Hoboken, NJ: The Cochrane Collaboration.