Social Health Insurance and Healthcare Seeking Behavior in Urban Ethiopia.

Background: After years of planning, in 2024 the government of Ethiopia proposes to introduce a compulsory Social Health Insurance (SHI) program for formal sector employees. The proposed scheme will provide access to contracted healthcare facilities at a premium of 3% of the gross monthly income of employees with another 3% coming from the employer. Objectives: Several studies have examined the willingness to pay (WTP) this premium, however, little is known about the healthcare seeking behavior (HSB) of formal sector employees. This paper investigates both - the determinants of healthcare seeking behavior and among other aspects, WTP the premium. Through these explorations, the paper sheds light on the potential challenges for implementation of SHI. Methods: Descriptive statistics, logit, and multinomial logit (MNL) models are used to analyze retrospective survey data (2,749 formal sector employees) which covers the major regions of the country. Findings: Regarding outpatient care, a majority of the visits (55.9%) were to private healthcare providers. In the case of inpatient care, it was the opposite with a majority of healthcare seekers visiting public sector hospitals (62.5%). A majority of the sample (67%) supported the introduction of SHI but only 24% were willing to pay the proposed SHI premium. The average WTP was 1.6% of gross monthly income. Respondents in the two richest income quintiles were more likely to oppose SHI and consider it unfair. Conclusion: The prominent role of the private sector and the resistance to SHI amongst the two richest income quintiles, suggests that the SHI program needs to actively include private healthcare facilities within its ambit. Additionally, concerted efforts at enhancing the quality of care available at public health facilities, both, in terms of perception and patient-centered care and addressing drug and equipment availability bottlenecks, are needed, if SHI is to garner wider support.

Willingness to take COVID-19 vaccination in low-income countries: Evidence from Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: In low-income countries, vaccination campaigns are lagging, and evidence on vaccine acceptance, a crucial public health planning input, remains scant. This is the first study that reports willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines and its socio-demographic correlates in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country. METHODS: The analysis is based on a nationally representative survey data of 2,317 households conducted in the informal economy in November 2020. It employs two logistic regression models where the two outcome variables are (i) a household head's willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine or not, and (ii) if yes if they would also hypothetically pay (an unspecified amount) for it or not. Predictors include age, gender, education, marital status, income category, health insurance coverage, sickness due to COVID-19, chronic illness, trust in government, prior participation in voluntary activities, urban residence. RESULTS: Willingness to take the vaccine was high (88%) and significantly associated with COVID-19 cases in the family, trust in government and pro-social behavior. All other predictors such as gender, education, income, health insurance, chronic illness, urban residence did not significantly predict vaccine willingness at the 5% level. Among those willing to take the vaccine, 33% also answered that they would hypothetically pay (an unspecified amount) for it, an answer that is significantly associated with trust in government, health insurance coverage and income. CONCLUSION: The results highlight both opportunities and challenges. There is little evidence of vaccine hesitancy in Ethiopia among household heads operating in the informal economy. The role played by trust in government and pro-social behavior in motivating this outcome suggests that policy makers need to consider these factors in the planning of COVID-19 vaccine campaigns in order to foster vaccine uptake. At the same time, as the willingness to hypothetically pay for a COVID-19 vaccine seems to be small, fairly-priced vaccines along with financial support are also needed to ensure further uptake of COVID-19 vaccines.

The Effect of Ethiopia's Community-Based Health Insurance Scheme on Revenues and Quality of Care.

Ethiopia's Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) scheme was established with the objectives of enhancing access to health care, reducing out-of-pocket expenditure (OOP), mobilizing financial resources and enhancing the quality of health care. Previous analyses have shown that the scheme has enhanced health care access and led to reductions in OOP. This paper examines the impact of the scheme on health facility revenues and quality of care. This paper relies on a difference-in-differences approach applied to both panel and cross-section data. We find that CBHI-affiliated facilities experience a 111% increase in annual outpatient visits and annual revenues increase by 47%. Increased revenues are used to ameliorate drug shortages. These increases have translated into enhanced patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction increased by 11 percentage points. Despite the increase in patient volume, there is no discernible increase in waiting time to see medical professionals. These results and the relatively high levels of CBHI enrollment suggest that the Ethiopian CBHI has been able to successfully negotiate the main stumbling block-that is, the poor quality of care-which has plagued similar CBHI schemes in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Uptake of health insurance and the productive safety net program in rural Ethiopia.

Due to lack of well-developed insurance and credit markets, rural families in Ethiopia are exposed to a range of covariate and idiosyncratic risks. In 2005, to deal with the consequences of covariate risks, the government implemented the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), and in 2011, to mitigate the financial consequences of ill-health, the government introduced a pilot Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) Scheme. This paper explores whether scheme uptake and retention is affected by access to the PSNP. Based on household panel data and qualitative information, the analysis shows that participating in the PSNP increases the probability of CBHI uptake by 24 percentage points and enhances scheme retention by 10 percentage points. A large proportion of this effect may be attributed to explicit and implicit pressure applied by government officials on PSNP beneficiaries. Whether this is a desirable approach is debatable. Nevertheless, the results suggest that membership in existing social protection programs may be leveraged to spread new schemes and potentially accelerate poverty reduction efforts.