Healthcare costs are not just a major concern in the United States, according to a report published in Health Affairs. Healthcare is responsible for annually driving more than 150 million people worldwide to the brink of poverty, the report found.
"Protecting Households From Catastrophic Health Spending," by Ke Xu and co-authors, was based on research conducted by the World Health Organization in 89 countries covering 89 percent of the world's population and is the first of its kind to be so extensive.
WHO researchers found that countries that fund their healthcare with taxes or insurance, rather than out-of-pocket payments, are less likely to have a population that suffers from what researchers called "financial catastrophe." Researchers defined financial catastrophe as having healthcare bills that exceed 40 percent of a household's capacity to pay in any year.
When prepayment, such as taxes or insurance, pay for more than 80 percent of all healthcare, financial catastrophe is less than 1 percent, the study found.
Financial catastrophe can be reduced, the researchers say, when governments collect financial contributions to healthcare before illness strikes. It also found that there was no evidence social health insurance offered better or worse protection than tax-based systems.