Original Research Article
Year: 2021 | Month: January-March | Volume: 6 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 39-50
Composition of Health Expenditure among the Hospitalization Cases in Manipur
M. Hemanta Meitei1, Haobijam Bonny Singh2
1Associate Professor, Department of Economics, 2Research Scholar, Department of Economics,
Manipur University, Imphal, India.
Corresponding Author: Haobijam Bonny Singh
ABSTRACT
Protecting households from high out-of-pocket expenditure has become one of the main objectives of the health system reforms for many countries, and it has been inducted in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-3). The paper intends to seek the distributional dimensions of the out-of-pocket health expenditure of hospitalization cases in Manipur. From this information, a policy to mitigate the high out-of-pocket health expenditure can be highlighted in the state. A cross-section study with primary data was conducted in which only the hospitalization cases during the last 365 days prior to the date of the survey (2016) were included. Descriptive statistics such as mean, median and percentage distribution are employed to examine the distributional aspect of health expenditure. The results show that the medicine costs constitute the highest percentage share with (69 % in public hospital cases), 43 % (private hospitals) and 60 % (overall health facility) to the total direct cost of hospitalization. Medical costs (doctor/consultation fee, medicines, diagnostics and hospital fees) cover 84 %, 83 % and 84 % shares of total costs of hospitalization respectively at public, private and overall health facility whereas the total non-medical costs (foods, transportation, lodging and others fees) amount to 16 %, 17 % and 16 % respectively at public, private and overall health facility. The results also revealed that the total medical costs co-vary strongly with the types and severity of the ailment and the type of facility where the treatment was taken while non-medical costs associated with the duration of stay in the hospital, transport, and arrangement for caregivers. There is a need for policy intervention in providing free medicine with proper policy implementation (free from supplier induced demand) at the hospital for poor households to achieve the Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
Keywords: Out-of-pocket expenditure; catastrophic health expenditure; Impoverishment.