An Overview on Iran Health Care Financing System: Challenges and Solutions

According to the principle 29 the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran, receiving social security and health care is a public right, and its preparation from public revenues and resources resulting from all of the citizen’s participations has been undertaken by the government. This analytic-descriptive research tries to evaluate the current status of the financial system in health care area. Identify the weaknesses, determine the indicators of an efficient financial system, and provide solutions to improve the efficiency of health care. Hence, we have used the comparative study of health systems in some countries. The results of the current research show that in spite of the fact that the budget allocated to the health system does not conform to the international standards, the main problem is not the budget shortage, but is the ways to allocate and manage the budget. First part of studies says how to increase funds, and second part is about the optimal allocation of these resources and how to budget efficiently according to the world’s most successful system approaches. Although some mechanisms such as taxes are highly desirable for providing the resources of health system, it isn’t so possible in Iran, because of the necessity of some extensive evolutions in taxation system, and the difficulties of doing so, or at least the necessity of passing a long time process besides providing infrastructures. This way, the other ways of gathering funds are reachable simpler. It seems necessary to apply new policies regarding the structure and management of financial resources in order to decrease paying directly from pockets.