The objective of this paper is to assess the extent of catastrophic healthcare expenditure, which can lead to impoverishment, even in a country with a National Health Service, such as Portugal. The level of catastrophic healthcare expenditure will be identified before the determinants of these...

The financial rescue plan for the Portuguese economy details a number of adjustments to be made in the National Health Service. We review the changes on user charges. The requirement of the rescue plan on user charges is twofold: structure of user charges and the levels of user charges. Adoption...