What Can Financing Schemes and Payment Systems Do to Improve Pandemic Response?

The budget allocation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic indicates an increase in both health and non-health sectors, together with policy prioritization to mitigate socioeconomic damage globally. In contrast with responses to previous economic crises, many governments instead expanded their budget, resulting in increased support for the health care sector. However, a significant portion of the budget was allocated to economic stimulus and industrial investment. Accordingly, the budget allocated to prevention and response to infectious diseases in the health care sector was relatively small, or it was spent from ear-marked resources such as social health insurance. However, health crises such as the pandemic required an essential workforce and additional services to protect population health and expedite the socioeconomic recovery. In this sense, strengthening the sustainability and resilience of the health care system was a way toward national security and economic growth. Governments would need to allocate additional budgets to the health sector in response to health crisis, and mobilize earmarked funds collected from social insurance contributions. The latter enables the provision of essential health services with or without governments' financial support. A mixed payment system could boost surge capacity in the health care system and provide incentives for medical providers