Abstract:
Background: Community based health insurance scheme is an effective financing mechanism to help people who are unable to use health care services due to financial problem. CBHI schemes is based on the premises of risk-pooling and community solidarity to risks of falling sick and designed to provide financial protection and reduce out-of-pocket health care expenditure. Objective: To assess willingness to pay for community based health insurance among households in the rural community of Wondo District, West Arsi Zone, Oromia region, south East Ethiopia, 2017. Methods: Community based Cross sectional study design was employed to collect the data. Two stage sampling technique was used to select 499 households as study units which were allocated to the kebeles proportionately.The study population was households that were not enrolled into community based health insurance scheme at the time of study. Data was collected from a total 499 respondents using a structured pre tested questionnaire. The data was cleaned, coded, entered into EPI-INFO version 7 software and transferred and analyzed using SPSS computer software package version 21. Results: Among 499 study participants, 439 (88%) were expressed their willingness to join the schemes, from these 292 (66.5%) were willingness to pay community based health insurance scheme. The mean amount of money household heads willing to pay was 209.65(+21) birr (10USD) per house hold per annual. Based on the logistic regression model, the odds of willingness to pay were likely to be significantly higher among those who attended at least primary education and those with higher income and elderly. Conclusion and Recommendation: The willingness to pay for the community-based health insurance scheme in the study area was high. The scheme may need to give special considerations for the young age group, low income and uneducated households.