Effects of private and public health expenditure on health outcomes among countries with different health care systems: 2000 and 2014

Background: In the recent decades, most studies have paid more attention to community expenditures in health sector and health outcomes. This study provides econometric evidence linking countries’ health expenditures to 3 health outcomes: (1) infant mortality, (2) under 5 mortality and (3) life expectancy within 4 different health care systems. Methods: In this study, we used the econometric method to estimate the effect of health expenditure on health status. Panel data were collected and grouped for 25 countries according to the health care system over 15 years (2000-2015). The random effects model was selected over the fixed effects model based on the Hausman test to assess the effect of different factors on the 3 mentioned health outcomes. Results: A significant relationship was found between health expenditures and health indicators. The effect of private health expenditures on health outcomes in countries with mixed health financing system and traditional sickness fund insurance was higher than public expenditures. Also, after comparing the results between different health care systems, we found that the effect of health expenditure on the health outcome in countries with national health system (NHS) was more than other health care systems. Conclusion: To improve health status, health policymakers should focus on the factors that lie inside the health care system. Therefore, since private and public health expenditures have different effects on health outcomes in each health care system, countries should choose an optimal combination of private and public health expenditures.