Unsurprisingly, with regard to affordability, the vast majority of elderly
people do not encounter economic problems in receiving specialist services.
Only a small proportion reported economic problems and even fewer
gave up visits to specialists due to economic problems. This is because,
according to the Israeli national health insurance law, health services are
universal and out-of-pocket costs are low, thus enabling every citizen to
receive health services. However, if patients have to visit more than one
specialist, they have to copay this amount for each specialist, which becomes
difficult to pay for those who have a minimum monthly income. Yet,
younger elderly persons reported more economic problems compared to
their older counterparts, although no significant differences were found
between the three age-groups with regard to rates of those giving up visits
due to economic problems. It should be noted, however, that findings from
a national survey in Israel (Gross et el., 2007) showed that the rate of
elderly people who gave up utilization of health services in general was
lower compared to the general population and lower compared to that
reported in other countries like the United States (Schoen et al., 2005), suggesting
that affordability is not a significant barrier to utilization of specialist
services among elderly people in Israel.