MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY TRAN NGOC THANH INEQUITY IN HOUSEHOLD HEALTH CARE FINANCE IN VIETNAM MASTER OF ART IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS (SPECIALIZATION IN HEALTH ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT) Ho Chi Minh City – 2015 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY TRAN NGOC THANH INEQUITY IN HOUSEHOLD HEALTH CARE FINANCE IN VIETNAM Major : Economics Code : 60310105 MASTER OF ART IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS (SPECIALIZATION IN HEALTH ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT) Advisor: Dr. Pham Khanh Nam Dr. ArdeshirSepehri Ho Chi Minh City – 2015 WORD OF WARRANTY My name: Tran Ngoc Thanh As master student, grade Economics and Health Administration, the 2013-2015, Faculty of Development Economics, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. I swear this is my research.
The data and conclusions of Research presented in this thesis are honest and have not been published in other research. I am responsible for my research. Student Tran Ngoc Thanh CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CONTENT OF TABLE CONTENT OF FIGURE CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Equity in health care.
Inequality and Inequity. Vertical equity and Horizontal equity. Ability to pay – ATP. Concentration index and Concentration curve.
Katwani indices and Concentration curves. Inequity or Progressivity of health care finance. Review emperical studies about health equity finance. Vietnam Health Care System.
Delivery of Health care. Financing of Health Care. OLS and Quantile Regression of Household Total expenditure. Average Per household Health Finance, Shares of Total Financing.
Distributional Incidence of Sources of Household Health Finance. Decomposition inequality of Household Total expenditure. Decomposition inequality of Health Care. Distribution of Health Payments.
Compare with international studies .50 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATION .53 REFERENCE LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ATP Ability to pay CI Concentration index GDP Gross domestic product GSO General Statistics Office K Katwani index MOH Ministry of Health OOP Out-of-pocket (payment) PHI Private health insurance SHI Social health insurance THE Total health expenditure VND Vietnamese Dong (currency) OLS Ordinary least squares VHLSS Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey WHO World Health Organization CONTENT OF TABLE Table 1: Some brief definitions .5 Table 2: The magnitude of inequality based on the value of CIs .10 Table 3: Summary formulae analyzing inequity .20 Table 4: Variables of socioeconomic factors and expenditures.25 Table 5: Health Expenditure in Vietnam .31 Table 6: OLS and Quantile Regression of Household Total expenditure .33 Table 7: Average Per household Health Finance (‘000 VND) and Shares of Total Financing (%) .37 Table 8: Distributional Incidence of Sources of Household Health Finance in Vietnam, 2012 and 2010 .41 Table 9: Decomposition inequality of Household Total expenditure .46 Table 10: Decomposition inequality of Health Care .45 Table 11: Compared results with international studies .49 CONTENT OF FIGURE Figure 1: Social determinants of health and health equity .6 Figure2: Health inequality vs.7 Figure3: Process to analyze inequity .8 Figure4: Three dimensions of health coverage .8 Figure5: Lorenz curve for prepayment income and concentration curve for health care payment .11 Figure6: Framework of analysing inequity .19 Figure7: The structure of health care system in Vietnam .28 Figure8: Channels of financing sources for Viet Nam health care system .30 Figure9: Social Insurance Contribution, Inpatient and Outpatient payments, Out-of- pocket for health care .47 Figure10: Health Payment Shares by Quintiles. Background Equity is one of the most important problems on the world, especially in health care finance. Many countries are working to establish a health financing system that allows them promote, prevent, curate and rehabilitate health interventions for all at an affordable cost – thereby achieving equity in access and financial riskprotection as well as in health financing (WHO, 2005). Moreover, this is particularly challenging for low- and middle-income countries in light of their heavy reliance on out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for health care (WHO, 2010).
Viet Nam is a developing country, withoutthe exception. The challenge is to improve the health financing system in order to achieve universal coverage asan overall policy goal. Equitable financing is a key objective of health care systems. Its importance is evidenced in policy documents, policy statements, the work of health economists and policy analysts.
The financing of health care is a subject of major concern throughout the world. The conventional categorisations of finance source for health care are taxation, social health insurance, and out-of-pocket payments. An understanding of the equity implications would help policy makers in achieving equitable financing. The main purpose of this research was to comprehensively assess the equity of health care financing in Vietnam, which represents a new country context for the quantitative techniques used.
In this research, author uses the concentration index to assess inequality and Katwani index to assess the inequity of health care finance. The study evaluated each of the four financing sources (outpatient and inpatient expenditures, health insurance,out-of-pocket payments) independently, and subsequently by combined the financing sources to evaluate the whole financing system. The author also assesses inequality of expenditure only in health care and total expenditure including food and non-food expenditures of households. Moreover, the author also uses additional methodology to assess that which sources 2 mostly affect inequity of health care finance by applying the method decomposition of expenditure Definition of Equity involves a value judgment of fairness on the variations from the equality in the population.
Equity in health care financing is assessed by the degree of inequality in paying for health care between households of unequal Ability To Pay (ATP) (Doorslaer, Wagstaff, 1993), ATP is the factor used to evaluate inequity of health care finance system– ATP can be measured by the total expenditure of household, including food, non-food payments and healthcare expenses. To strengthen the important of health care finance related to ATP, many studies have used ATP to evaluate the inequity in health care field such as ATP in Denmark and the UK; Ireland, Portugal and Spain; Italy and the Netherlands; and tax financing in Switzerland. Furthermore, the accordance of health payments to ATP is regarded as an important objective in the finance of health care in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands. Policy makers in various countries are seen to commit towards financing health care according to ATP.
Kakwani (1997), Doorslaer (1997,2000),Doorslaer andMasseria(2004), Wagstaffand Doorslaer (1993, 1997),Wagstaff(2002)have studied income- relatedinequalityinhealthcareutilization, equity in health care delivery, equity in health care finance, and inequalities in health by using ATP. The Ministry of Health (MOH) in Vietnam also agree to use the new national health financing scheme be related to ATP (PAHE, 2011). With all reasons above, the author also uses ATP tomeasureandexplaininequality and inequity in health care finance in Vietnam. In summary, this study usetheconcentrationindex and Kakwani indexforthe measurement of ATPinequality and inequity in health care finance proposedbyWagstaffandDoorslaer (2000) to assess whether there are inequity and inequality in health care system andwhichfactors affect mostly to the inequity in health care finance system in Vietnam.2 Research Objectives This study presents an inequity assessment of the health financing system, and draws together all finance sources in Vietnam to evaluate the whole financing system.
The general objective is to analyzethe inequity of health care finance with quintile of ability-to-pay of Vietnam households. Specific objectives are: 1. To calculate the inequality indices (CIs) and the inequity indices (Katwani indices)of healthcare finance variables of households such astotal expenditure, health payments, out-of-pocket for health, food or non-food payments. To decompose the inequality of households’ totalexpenditure and total health expenditure.
To calculate the factors affect to total expenditure or ATP through both OLS and Quantile regression models.3 Data source This study uses the datasets of Vietnam Living Standards Survey 2012 and 2010 (VHLSS 2012, 2010) with households as observations.4 Study Design Chapter 1 focusesonthebackgroundand preciselystatestheproblemsthathavetobeaddressbythisresearch. It also establishes the significance of thisresearch. Chapter 2presents general definition of inequality and inequity in health, health finance variables, and methods measure inequity indices. Chapter 3 briefly reviews the relevant literatures and outlines the detailed method used for this study.
Chapter 4 calculates inequity indices and decomposes the health care finance variables. Finally, Chapter 5 briefly discusses the conclusions, policy implications and limitation of this study. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Social equity Today, there are many definitions about equity of different schools, here are some perspectives: Libertarians emphasize a respect for natural rights, focusing in particular on two of the rights: rights to life and to possessions.
Utilitarians aim at maximizing the sum of individual utilities or welfare, though some utilitarian writers have incorporated a concern for individual autonomy into this maximand. Rawlsians (1971) proposes two principles of social justice, namely that individuals should havethe maximal liberty compatible with the same degree of liberty for everyone and that deliberate inequalities are unjust unless they work to the advantage of the least well off. Marxists emphasize “needs”, principle of “distribution according to need”. And this principle is can be interpreted as “from each according to his ability to pay”.
Health equity also has many perspectives of many different reseachers and institutions on the world, specific described at Table 1: 5 Table 1: Some brief definitions No Author Definitions. Horizontal equity requires equal treatment for Mooney 1983 (and equal need. 1 others Vertical equity: different treatment for different need. Health care is equitable when resource allocation 2 Aday 1984 and access are determined by health needs Health inequities are differences in health that are 3 Whitehead 1990, 1992 avoidable, unjust and unfair Equity in health care means equal utilization, Culyer &Wagstaff 4 distribution according to need, equal access and 1993 equal health outcomes Health equity is the absence of systematic and International Society potentially remediable differences in one or more 5 for Equity in Health aspects of health across populations or population (ISEqH), 2005 subgroups defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically “Health Equity is the absence of potentially avoidable differences in health (or health risks that 6 WHO policy can influence) between groups of people who aremore and less advantaged socially” Source: Braveman, 2006, forthcoming PAHE 2013 2.
Equity in health care Hurst (1985) studies of inequity in health care finance have tended to take as their starting point the premise that health care ought to be financed according to ability to pay The egalitarians who are concerned to ensure that health care is financed according to ability to pay and that the delivery of health care is organized in such a way that everyone enjoys the same access to care and that the care is allocated on the basis of need with a view to promoting equality of health. The general picture of health care finance which was affected by many determinants such as individual lifestype factors, social and community networks, 6 and general socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions. The detailed was described by WHO in Figure 1 as below. Figure 1: Social determinants of health and health equity 2.
Inequality and Inequity Theterminequalityinhealthisdifferentthantheterminequityinhealth. Actually, inequalities in health are based upon observed differences on disparities on health.Health inequalies are differences in health outcomes and their determinants between segments of the population, as defined by social, demographic, environmental, and geographic attributes. On the other hand, inequities in health are based on ethical judgments about the fairness of the differences.Health inequity refers to those inequalities in health that are deemed to be unfair or stemming from some form of injusticeor“the absence of potentially avoidabledifferences in health between groups of people who are more and less advantaged socially” (PAHE, 2013) 7 An example of health inequality is the higher incidence of illness among the elder people as compared withyoung people.However,ifthereexistsahigher incidence of illness among the poor elderly as compared with that amongthenon- poor elderly, thenthisreferstoasavoidableinequalityorinequity(determinedbysocio- economicfactors, etc). The distinction between health inequality and health inequity is illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Health inequality vs.