Public funding of the total health expenditure: an ecological study by countries according to income levels/Financiamiento publico del gasto total en salud: un estudio ecologico por paises segun niveles de ingreso/Financiamento publico da despesa total em saude: um estudo ecologico por paises por nivel de renda

Over the last decades, total health expenditure (THE) has increased, not only in developed economies but also in emerging ones. This paper is a descriptive and mixed ecological study. We took a sample of 192 countries grouped by income levels, and analyzed i) the patterns of public funding of THE, ii) the share of public health expenditure in the general government budgets, and iii) the Globermann and Vining hypothesis about the existence of a negative correlation between the proportion of THE financed by the governments and THE as a percentage of the GDP. We found that governments most involved in the health sector showed, on average, a higher per capita THE. We also found that the relationship between public funding of THE and THE the as a percentage of GDP is negative and statistically significant only in rich OECD countries and the poor ones.