Health

Dental Health: The Burden on Households – Implications for National Health Insurance

Authors: Guy Navon, Dov Chernichovsky, published under Health
a30 May 2010

Household expenditure on dental health care in Israel is regressive. The Israeli household stands before a dilemma: whether to forgo medical care, in most cases for children and the elderly, or to forgo some other need in order to pay for dental care.

Expenditure on private insurance is common amongst a very low percentage of households and primarily in the higher income quintiles. While it improves their situation it also serves to widen inequalities in access to treatment as well as income disparities and general demand. The lowest income quintiles cope with the expenditures for routine dental care – which represent some 7% of their overall household expenditure when they need treatment and especially treatment for children – and they are not able to deal with expensive treatments related to surgeries or reconstruction. The lowest two quintiles almost completely forgo dental health treatments.

The study recommends a process for including dental health care in National Health Insurance, with the required budgetary back-up that will be required. This process is likely to bring real relief in the medium and long-range in terms of an improvement in dental health in Israel and a savings in national expenditure for dental health.

In Hebrew only; English translation in preparation.

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Keywords

• Health,
• inequality,
• resource allocation

More by Guy Navon

• A “Malignant Growth” in the Share of Private Expenditure for Healthcare and Its Price a25 Jul 2010
• Dental Health: The Burden on Households – Implications for National Health Insurance a30 May 2010

More by Dov Chernichovsky

• Israel’s Healthcare System a2 Oct 2011
• Changes in Healthcare System Allocation to Promote Equality Between the Center and the Periphery. Is It for Real? a16 Mar 2011
• A “Malignant Growth” in the Share of Private Expenditure for Healthcare and Its Price a25 Jul 2010
• Dental Health: The Burden on Households – Implications for National Health Insurance a30 May 2010
• The Healthcare System a13 Apr 2010
• The Public Supervision of Sick Funds in Israel a17 Feb 2008
• Health System Finance in Israel 1995-2005: Aspects of Poverty, Progressivity and Cost Containment a3 Dec 2007
• Equity and the Israeli Health Care System: Relative Poverty as a Health Risk Factor a10 Jul 2003
• The Capitation Mechanism and the Public Allocation to Health Services in Israel a3 Jul 2003
• An Optimum Model for Israel’s Dental Care System a24 Dec 1999
• Equity in the Israeli Health System a14 Dec 1997
• Comparative Examination of Plans for the Introduction of Health Insurance a9 Oct 1983