This summary assesses the extent to which people in Israel experience financial hardship when they use health care or financial barriers that prevent them from accessing health care.
It covers the period from 2005 to 2024 using data from household budget surveys from 2005 to 2022 (the latest available year), data on unmet need for health care up to 2021 (the latest available year) and information on health coverage policy (population coverage, service coverage and user charges) up to April 2024.
In 2022, 2% of households were impoverished or further impoverished after out-of-pocket payments and 5% of households experienced catastrophic health spending. Catastrophic health spending is heavily concentrated in households with low incomes. The incidence of catastrophic health spending is higher than the national average in households in the poorest consumption quintile (18%) and households headed by older adults (10%), Arabs (8%) or ultra-orthodox Jews (10%).
More information about Israel is available on UHC watch, a new platform tracking progress on affordable access to health care in Europe and central Asia. You can visit the country page, explore numbers for Israel using the indicators explorer and see how it compares to other countries in Europe and explore coverage policy in Israel using the policy explorer.
Suggested citation: UHC watch. (2024). Country page for Israel (online database). WHO Regional Office for Europe. https://apps.who.int/dhis2/uhcwatch