Equity in Health Care in The Occupied Palestinian Territory: A Benefit Incidence Analysis

This paper employs a Benefit Incidence Analysis (BIA) framework of health care financing in the occupied Palestinian territory to trace the distribution of public spending on health care, and to provide some elements of response that would complement, and integrate with, the findings from previous literature on the topic for the case of the occupied Palestinian territory. With this aim in mind, the present paper attempts to address the following objectives: (i) to assess the budget and financing structure of the different health care providers in the occupied Palestinian territory, as related to various socioeconomic, locality, and ailment groups of the population; (ii) to assess the health status of the Palestinian population and its distribution over different: demographic, geographic and socio-economic groups, using generic mortality and morbidity indicators; and (iii) to assess how benefits of public spending are distributed across different groups of the population. The occupied Palestinian territory is not a classical example of a developing country aiming to improve equity in the health system and thus such evaluation will take into consideration the political instability of the country and its influence on the financing of the health care system.