Journal of

Background: Insurance coverage has a tendency to alter the consumer and provider's behavior. Moral hazard is a serious problem in all risk pooling systems, such as insurance and taxes-based financial systems that cause negative consequences as increased costs in the health system. Therefore we decide, at this review article, to discuss about moral hazard, in different classifications and effects on the insurance marketing and health system.
Materials & Methods: This is a review article. Relevant materials selected from published articles, studies, and sites. The databases of Medline, Web of Science, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Springer were explored to use the key words of moral hazard and health insurance.
Results: Insurance covered individuals, knowing that their health expenditures will be reimbursed by insurance in the time of illness, and their demand medical services are more than un insurance covered individuals. On the other hand the providers have financial incentive to provide unnecessary and excess medical services. Different types of moral hazard like as ex ante and ex post moral hazard hidden information and hidden action moral hazard provider and consumer moral hazard may arise due to insurance coverage. These lead to negative consequences such as consumption of unnecessary care services, alteration of consumption pattern for inefficient use of resources, welfare loss, and an increase in the health expenditures.
Conclusion: Studying and controlling the effects of moral hazards seems necessary to prevent unwelcome outcomes as well as misallocation of financial resources.

Background: Achieving equitable financial contribution and removing the risk of households' exposure to catastrophic expenditures are the most important challenges for health systems all over the world. This study aimes to measure Iranian households' exposure to catastrophic health care expenditures and surveying the factors affecting this expenditure, based on the World Health Organization and the World Bank approach.
Materials & Methods: Sectional data of the World Health Survey in Iran in 2001 has been analyzed. This survey covered 10300 urban and rural households across the country. The catastrophic expenditure has been calculated based on the ability to pay in the thresholds of 40, 50, and 60 percent and the income at the threshold of 20 percent. Logistic regression model was used to examine factors influencing catastrophic health expenditures.
Results: The proportion of families confronting catastrophic health expenditures was estimated at 9-15 per cent. Facing catastrophic expenditures showed a statistically significant relationship with variables such as having a family member suffering from a chronic disease, family`s financial condition, and living in rural areas regardless of the thresholds used. The insurance coverage showed a statistically significant relationship with exposure of catastrophic health expenditure just in case it was measured using the 40% threshold.
Conclusion: Political interventions and policies of the government such as implementing fee exemptions for certain target groups, designing benefits packages, extending population coverage through prepayment mechanisms and protecting the poor and disadvantaged groups can protect households from experiencing catastrophic health expenditures.