Inequity in Health Care Financing in Iran: Progressive or Regressive Mechanism?

Objective: Having progressive health finance mechanism is very important to decrease inequity in health systems. Revenue collection is one of the aspects of health care financing. In this study, taxation system and health insurance contribution of Iranians were assessed.

Materials and Methods: Data of 2012 household expenditures survey were used in this study, and payments of the families for health insurances and tax payments were extracted from the study. Kakwani index was calculated for assessing the progressivity of these payments. At the end, a model was designed to find the effective factors.

Results: We found that taxation mechanism was progressive, but insurance contribution mechanism was very regressive. The portion of people living in urban regions was higher in the payments of insurance and tax. Less educated families had lower contribution in health insurance and families with more aging persons paid more for health insurance.

Conclusion: Policy makers must pay more attention to the health insurance contribution and change the laws in favour of the poor.