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Future of health financing: The expected economic contraction due to COVID-19 in developing economies is sufficient to put considerable pressure on budgetary space for health spending, which in many settings is already constrained.

Introduction: Millions of U.S. patients have been hospitalized for COVID-19. After discharge, these patients often have extensive health care needs, but out-of-pocket burden for this care is poorly described. We assessed out-of-pocket spending within 90 days of discharge from COVID-19 hospitalization among privately insured and Medicare Advantage patients. Methods: In May 2021, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the IQVIA PharMetrics ® Plus for Academics Database, a national de-identified claims database. Among privately insured and Medicare Advantage patients hospitalized for COVID-19 between March-June 2020, we calculated mean out-of-pocket spending for care within 90 days of discharge. For context, we repeated analyses for patients hospitalized for pneumonia. Results: Among 1,465 COVID-19 patients included, 516 (35.2%) and 949 (64.8%) were covered by private...

Low- and middle-income countries are implementing COVID-19 vaccination strategies in light of varying and uncertain vaccine efficacies and costs, supply shortages, and resource constraints. We used a microsimulation model to evaluate clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccination program in South Africa. We varied vaccination coverage, pace, acceptance, effectiveness, and cost as well as epidemic dynamics. Providing vaccine to at least 40% of the population and prioritizing accelerated vaccine rollout prevented >9 million infections and >73,000 deaths and reduced costs due to fewer hospitalizations. Further, the vaccination program was cost-saving even at the lowest examined levels of acceptance (50%), effectiveness against infection (20%), effectiveness against symptomatic disease (30%), and effectiveness against severe/critical disease requiring hospitalization...

Background: The economic stimulus package in the United States, which totalled $2.48 trillion, was designed to soften the economic impact of sweeping containment measures including shelter-in-place orders that were put in place to control the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: In healthcare, interventions are rarely justified simply in terms of the number of lives saved but also in terms of a myriad of other trade-off factors including value-for-money or cost-effectiveness. Cost-effectiveness analysis was therefore conducted as the cost per life-year gained (Cost/LYG) from the containment measures adopted based on several different projections of the baseline number of deaths in the absence of any containment measures. Reductions in premature mortality due to the shutdown (i.e. the difference between years of life lost relative to life expectancy under the shutdown and no shutdown...

Relevant pandemic-spread scenario simulations can provide guiding principles for containment and mitigation policies. We devised a compartmental model to predict the effectiveness of different mitigation strategies with a main focus on mass testing. The model consists of a set of simple differential equations considering the population size, reported and unreported infections, reported and unreported recoveries, and the number of COVID-19-inflicted deaths. We assumed that COVID-19 survivors are immune (e.g., mutations are not considered) and that the virus is primarily passed on by asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic individuals. Moreover, the current version of the model does not account for age-dependent differences in the death rates, but considers higher mortality rates due to temporary shortage of intensive care units. The model parameters have been chosen in a plausible range...

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to large budget gaps of more than $8 trillion worldwide from higher spending requirements and reduced tax revenue. Sooner or later, policy makers must consider revenue sources to close these budget gaps and avoid debt

Many prominent people have advocated that the IMF undertake an “SDR allocation” to assist countries in dealing with the global financial crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. To most experts, the idea seems like a no-brainer, but some IMF shareholders have voiced concerns, particularly the United States, which has a controlling vote in the matter. If IMF shareholders show some leadership and bureaucratic flexibility, there are ways to allay the American government’s concerns and quickly get liquidity in the hands of countries who desperately need it.