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: The Buck Stops Here

New Study: Free Health Care Didn't Improve Outcomes

By Stuart Buck, Esq.

A new study from a randomized experiment in Ghana showed that when primary health care was made free, people used health care more often but weren't any healthier: Delays in accessing care for malaria and other diseases can lead to disease progression, and user fees are a known barrier to accessing health care. Governments are introducing free health care to improve health outcomes. Free health care affects treatment seeking, and it is therefore assumed to lead to improved health outcomes, but there is no direct trial evidence of the impact of removing out-of-pocket payments on health outcomes in developing countries. This trial was designed to test the impact of free health care on health outcomes directly.Methods and Findings2,194 households containing 2,592 Ghanaian children under 5 y old were randomised into a prepayment scheme allowing free primary care including drugs, or to a control group whose families paid user fees for health care (normal practice); 165 children whose families had previously paid to enrol in the prepayment scheme formed an observational arm...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Buck Stops Here on January 05, 2009 (boomark / email).