There is increasing interest in understanding how Results Based Financing (RBF) can improve efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in programming towards
Universal Health Coverage and improved health outcomes at scale. The Northern Uganda Health (NU Health) is a controlled implementation study to assess the costs and benefits of RBF relative to conventional Input Based Financing (IBF). The study design aimed to isolate the main effect of the financing modality in terms of quality and quantity of health service provision. Programme data and the results of an independent evaluation confirm a range of key findings. These include: A significant reduction in barriers to access and increase in health service utilisation; a three to eight fold improvement in adherence to standard treatment algorithms/quality of care for the major childhood killers: diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia; and, particularly dramatic improvements in care and utilisation at the lowest level facilities, harbouring the promise of real progress toward Universal Health Coverage.
Resource allocation and health financing
Africa has enjoyed a growth momentum since 2000 after the wasted years of the 1980s and much of the 1990s. However, eradicating poverty will require huge resources, which existing funding strategies will be unable to generate. Global commodity prices have fallen sharply; capacity to mobilise domestic revenues is waning; and aid has been insufficient in plugging funding gaps. Revenue bargains in which states extract revenues from citizens in exchange for investments that impact positively on well-being may be key to financing Africa’s development. They can substantially increase revenues, nurture effective state-citizen relations, force companies to pay correct taxes, push fragmented systems of service provision in the direction of universalism, improve policy space and make aid more effective.
How to finance progress towards universal health coverage in low-income and middle-income countries is a subject of intense debate. The authors investigated how alternative tax systems affect the breadth, depth, and height of health system coverage. The authors used cross-national longitudinal fixed effects models to assess the relationships between total and different types of tax revenue, health system coverage, and associated child and maternal health outcomes in 89 low-income and middle-income countries from 1995–2011. Tax revenue was a major statistical determinant of progress towards universal health coverage. Each US$100 per capita per year of additional tax revenues corresponded to a yearly increase in government health spending of $9·86, adjusted for GDP per capita. This association was strong for taxes on capital gains, profits, and income, but not for consumption taxes on goods and services. In countries with low tax revenues (<$1000 per capita per year), an additional $100 tax revenue per year substantially increased the proportion of births with a skilled attendant present by 6·74 percentage points and the extent of financial coverage by 11·4 percentage points. Consumption taxes, a more regressive form of taxation that might reduce the ability of the poor to afford essential goods, were associated with increased rates of post-neonatal mortality, infant mortality, and under-5 mortality rates. The authors did not detect these adverse associations with taxes on capital gains, profits, and income, which tend to be more progressive. Increasing domestic tax revenues is integral to achieving universal health coverage, particularly in countries with low tax bases. Pro-poor taxes on profits and capital gains seem to support expanding health coverage without the adverse associations with health outcomes observed for higher consumption taxes. Progressive tax policies within a pro-poor framework might accelerate progress toward achieving major international health goals.
The paper reports on work to collect, compile and evaluate publicly available national health accounts (NHA) reports produced worldwide between 1996 and 2010. The authors compiled data in the four main types used in these reports: (i) financing source; (ii) financing agent; (iii) health function; and (iv) health provider. The authors identified 872 NHA reports from 117 countries containing a total of 2936 matrices for the four data types. Most countries did not provide complete health expenditure data: only 252 of the 872 reports contained data in all four types. Some countries reported substantial year-on-year changes in both the level and composition of health expenditure that were probably produced by data-generation processes. All study data are publicly available at http://vizhub.healthdata.org/nha/. Data from NHA reports on health expenditure are often incomplete and, in some cases, of questionable quality. Better data would help finance ministries allocate resources to health systems, assist health ministries in allocating capital within the health sector and enable researchers to make accurate comparisons between health systems.
With 3.1 million people on antiretrovirals (ARV), South Africa has the world’s largest ARV programme. Sustaining it – and the HIV response – is argued to more than double in cost in the next two decades, according to new research. The research reported in this paper modelled the cost of county’s HIV response and what it will take to meet ambitious international development targets adopted by the country in 2014. The research found that South Africa’s HIV programme will cost about R40 billion each year by 2033 – more than double the R21 billion budgeted for the programme in the next financial year. The analysis also revealed the top 18 most cost-effective ways South Africa can tackle its epidemic. Top of the list was increasing condom distribution, medical male circumcision and mass communication campaigns promoting safer sex among teens.
In South Africa, HIV/AIDS remains a major public health problem. In a context of chronic unemployment and deepening poverty, social assistance through a Disability Grant (DG) is extended to adults with HIV/AIDS who are unable to work because of a mental or physical disability. Using a mixed methods approach, the authors consider inequalities in access to the DG for patients on ART and implications of DG access for on-going access to healthcare. Data were collected in exit interviews with 1200 ART patients in two rural and two urban health sub-districts in four different South African provinces. Additionally, 17 and 18 in-depth interviews were completed with patients on ART treatment and ART providers, respectively, in three of the four sites included in the quantitative phase. Grant recipients were comparatively worse off than non-recipients in terms of employment and wealth. The regression analyses showed that the employed were significantly less likely to receive the DG than the unemployed. Also, patients who were longer on treatment and receiving concomitant treatment (i.e., ART and tuberculosis care) were more likely to receive the DG. The qualitative analyses indicated that the DG alleviated the burden of healthcare related costs for ART patients. Both patients and healthcare providers spoke of the complexity of the grants process and eligibility criteria as a barrier to accessing the grant. This impacted adversely on patient-provider relationships. These findings highlight the appropriateness of the DG for people living with HIV/AIDS. However, improved collaboration between the Departments of Social Development and Health is essential for preparing healthcare providers who are at the interface between social security and potential recipients.
South Africa's proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, is many years away, but many of the country’s 10 pilot sites are reported to be making progress. Of the 10 NHI pilot districts Health e-news investigated all – with the exception of OR Tambo in the Eastern Cape – are making reasonable progress in improving public health. The pilot districts, covering 20 percent of the population, were set up almost five years previously after Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced the NHI as government policy. Negative patient experiences in public health facilities led government to concentrate on cleaning its own house before attempting any engagement of the NHI with the private sector.
The Ebola crisis exposed the weaknesses of healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries created mainly by insufficient funding. Given the global community’s commitment to universal health coverage (UHC), the Ebola outbreak has prompted serious reflection among health policy decision-makers. One of the central features of this debate is financing: how can relatively poor countries find the money to pay for universal health coverage? To date, low- and middle-income countries have been growing toward UHC through social health insurance systems funded through employment. Yet, progress has been slow and uneven leaving people in the informal sector, who are the majority of the population, out was insurance schemes. Rather than seeking innovative solutions to this old problem, this blog outlines how Aaron Reeves argues that what is needed is a renewed commitment to an old solution: tax-based financing. Using data from low- and middle-income countries my colleagues and I examined the association between tax revenues and health spending. We found that tax revenue was a major statistical determinant of progress towards UHC. Each $10 per-capita increase in tax revenue was associated with an additional $1 of public health spending per capita. Whereas each $10 increase in GDP per capita was associated with an increase of $0.10. Crucially, tax revenues sit on the pathway between economic growth and health spending. In short, tax financing is an efficient way of translating economic growth into health spending. Countries with more tax revenues have also made more progress on other indicators of UHC, even after adjusting for economic activity in the country. Among tax poor countries, greater tax revenues are associated with more women being attended by a skilled healthcare worker during pregnancy and greater access to healthcare for all people.
Development assistance for health (DAH) has grown to more than $31.3 billion in 2013. This paper presents evidence on the degree to which countries with high concentrations of conflict, violence, inequality, debt and corruption have received health aid compared to other countries. The authors combined DAH estimates and a multidimensional fragile states index for 2005 to 2011 comparing 'fragile' versus 'stable' states. Comparing low-income countries, fragile countries received $7.22 per person while stable countries received $11.15 per person. Funders preferred funding to low-income fragile countries that have refugees or ongoing external intervention but tended to avoid funding countries perceived to have political gridlock, flawed elections, or economic decline. While external health funding to 'fragile' countries has increased since 2005, it is per person almost half as much as the DAH provided to more stable countries of comparable income levels.
With user fees now seen as a major hindrance to universal health coverage, many countries have introduced fee reduction or elimination policies, but there is growing evidence that adherence to reduced fees is often highly imperfect. In 2004, Kenya adopted a reduced and uniform user fee policy providing fee exemptions to many groups. The authors present data on user fee implementation, revenue and expenditure from a nationally representative survey of 248 Kenyan public health centres and dispensaries in 2010. No facilities adhered fully to the user fee policy across eight tracer conditions, with adherence ranging from 62.2% for an adult with tuberculosis to 4.2% for an adult with malaria. Three quarters of exit interviewees had paid some fees and a quarter of interviewees were required to purchase additional medical supplies at a later stage from a private drug retailer. No consistent pattern of association was identified between facility characteristics and policy adherence. User fee revenues accounted for almost all facility cash income, with average revenue of USD 683 per facility per year. Fee revenue was mainly used to cover support staff, non-drug supplies and travel allowances. Adherence to user fee policy was very low, leading to concerns about the impact on access and the financial burden on households. However, the potential to ensure adherence was constrained by the facilities’ need for revenue to cover basic operating costs, highlighting the need for alternative funding strategies for peripheral health facilities.