In Ethiopia’s Kutaber district, does community-based health insurance protect households from catastrophic health-care costs? A community- based comparative cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: Every health system needs to take action to shield households from the expense of medical costs. The Ethiopian government implemented community-based health insurance (CBHI) to protect households from catastrophic health care expenditure (CHE) and enhance the utilization of health care services. The impact of CBHI on CHE with total household expenditure and non-food expenditure measures hadn’t been studied, so the study aimed to evaluate the impact of CBHI on CHE among households in Kutaber district, Ethiopia. METHODS: A total of 472 households (225 insured and 247 uninsured) were selected by multistage sampling techniques. Households total out-of-pocket (OOP) health payments ≥10% threshold of total household expenditure or ≥40% threshold of household non-food expenditure categorized as CHE. The co-variants for participation in the CBHI scheme were estimated by using a probit regression model. A propensity score matching analysis was used to determine the impact of CBHI on CHE. A Chi-square (χ2) test was computed to compare CHE between insured and uninsured households. RESULTS: The magnitude of CHE was 39.1% with total household expenditure and 1.8% with non-food expenditure measures among insured households. Insured households were 46.3% protected from CHE when compared to uninsured households with total household expenditure measures and 24.2% to 25% with non-food expenditure measures. CONCLUSION: The magnitude of CHE was lower among CBHI-enrolled households. CBHI is an effective means of financial protection benefits for households as a share of total household expenditure and non-food expenditure measures. Therefore, increasing the upper limits of benefit packages, minimizing exclusions, and CBHI scale-up to uninsured households is essential.