Government measures to address out-of-pocket health expense in Kazakhstan

Despite the fact that healthcare spending in Kazakhstan increased annually from 2011 to 2020, the country’s healthcare system is seriously underfunded. For this reason, household spending in Kazakhstan plays a significant role in overall health spending. According to WHO, if the share of private spending in total health care spending does not exceed 20%, the health care system can be considered sustainable. The risk of a decrease in the purchasing power of the population increases in cases where this indicator is exceeded, which in turn leads to negative consequences for the population itself. Therefore, the Government of Kazakhstan needs to take decisive measures to reduce the “out-of-pocket expense” of the population for health care, especially the cost of purchasing medicines. Effective government policy, timely reforms and mutually beneficial cooperation with pharmaceutical market actors can reduce the level of “out-of-pocket expenses” of the population for health care to generally accepted world indicators. Based on this, the study of different views on solving problems related to public and private spending in health care, price regulation and building an effective drug pricing system is an important condition for building an effective health care system.