Forum 7
Thursday, 3 October 2019 | 16:00-18:30 | Room 2
Financial protection, achieved when out-of-pocket payments for health services do not expose people to financial hardship, is at the core of universal health coverage. Policy around copayments plays a large role, as new evidence from WHO shows that copayments often lead to financial hardship for households – but some aspects of copayment policy design are more harmful than others.
Complex, unfair, ineffective and bureaucratic copayments can be transformed to reduce financial hardship and unmet need for prescribed medicines, and this session will explore how. We will hear a summary of select results from WHO's new analysis of financial protection, discuss reforms in European countries that have transformed copayment policy to protect people and serve health system goals, and together explore how obstacles to fair copayment policy and financial protection can be overcome in the future.