Income Redistributive Effects of the Health Care Financing System in Nigeria

Abstract: The extent of progressivity inherent in a country’s health care financing system has great potentials for redistribution of resources. A regressive health care financing system would imply that the poor are paying proportionately more than the rich to sustain the health care system in the country. This has the potentials to escalate the resource gap between the poor and the rich particularly if the poor are also more needy of health care services .In many developing countries there are widening inequalities between the subsistent poor and the affluent rich. In the past one and half decades, rising inequality between the rich and the poor in Nigeria has become a major source of national and international concern. This study intends to examine whether or not the exiting health care financing arrangement and the structure of the health care market in the country contribute income inequalities between the rich and the poor and the povertylevel in Nigeria. It is expected that the outcome of the research will provide useful information for policy makers concerned with bridging this gap.