Analysis Equity in Financing of Household?s Health in Development Programs of Iran

Unfair financial contribution and out of pocket payments that are not in line with the capacity to pay, not only leads to more households exposed to catastrophic health expenditures, but also result in impoverishment. Therefore the main goal of this essay is to analyze the situation of fairness and equality infinancial contribution of health payments. These calculations have been done throughout the whole country.In addition, the household’s expenditures in Iran are disaggregated into expenditure quintiles through selectedyears.

This study aimed to investigate health financing by using FFC index, catastrophic healthexpenditures index, and impoverishment expenditures index (based on World Bank Approach). To this end,Iran’s annual household’s survey data, which is produced by Iran statistic center, is used (1989 - 2014).

The index of fairness in financial contribution of households during the selected years experiencedminor fluctuations. The percentage of the households facing the catastrophic costs increased, however, thepercentage of impoverishment expenditures decreased in these selected years. Among the quintiles, thehouseholds in the fifth quintile had the highest rate of inequality in health payments and the highest percentageof households facing catastrophic costs. The first quintile had the highest rate of impoverishment expenditures.

It is concluded that the performed programs during the selected years have not been effective enough and financial contributions in health payments has been poorly targeted. The health system has not had successful achievements in protecting the households against the catastrophic costs and impoverishment expenditures.