BACKGROUND Bariatric surgery is an option for sustained weight loss for the morbidly obese patient. In Brazil coexists the Unified Health System (SUS) with universal coverage and from which depend 150 million Brazilians and supplemental health security, predominantly private, with 50 million beneficiaries. AIM To compare access, in-hospital mortality, length of stay and costs for patients und...

BACKGROUND The health insurance system in Taiwan is comprised of public health insurance and private health insurance. The public health insurance, called "universal national health insurance" (NHI), was first established in 1995 and amended in 2011. The goal of this study is to provide an updated description of several important aspects of health insurance in Taiwan. Of special interest are ho...

Indian health system is characterized by a vast public health infrastructure which lies underutilized, and a largely unregulated private market which caters to greater need for curative treatment. High out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditures poses barrier to access for healthcare. Among those who get hospitalized, nearly 25% are pushed below poverty line by catastrophic impact of OOP healthcare...

BACKGROUND New Zealand's Primary Health Care Strategy (NZPHCS) was introduced in 2002. Its features are substantial increases in government funding delivered as capitation payments, and newly-created service-purchasing agencies. The objectives are to reduce health disparities and to improve health outcomes. ANALYSIS The NZPHCS changes New Zealand's publicly-funded primary health care payments...

Based on the experiences of Japan and Germany, Ikegami argues that middle-income countries should introduce public long-term care insurance (LTCi) at an early stage, before benefits have expanded as a result of ad hoc policy decisions to win popular support. The experience of the Netherlands, however, shows that an early introduction of public LTCi may not prevent, but ...

insurance industry experts believe that fraud is a destructive disaster in the insurance industry. over the years, many methods have been used in the literature for fraud detection, one of which is expert systems. fraud detection expert systems are based on the knowledge of experts in the field of insurance identify fraud. judgment of experts is mostly based on evidence, documents, qualitative ...

background national/social health insurance schemes have increasingly been seen in many low- and middle-income countries (lmics) as a vehicle to universal health coverage (uhc) and a viable alternative funding mechanism for the health sector. several countries, including ghana, have thus introduced and implemented mandatory national health insurance schemes (nhis) as part of reform efforts towa...

OBJECTIVE Access to healthcare is mostly contingent on out-of-pocket spending (OOPS) by health seekers, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This would require many LMICs to raise enough funds to achieve universal health insurance coverage. But, are individuals or households willing to pay for health insurance, and how much? What factors positively affect WTP for health ins...

Background: To assess determinants of willingness to pay for community health insurance among commercial motorcyclists (Boda Boda riders) in Kampala City. Methods: A descriptive cross sectional research was done. A sample of commercial motorcyclists’ stages were purposively selected. Simple random sampling was used to select respondents at each stage.  Structured interviews and contingency val...

The article by The Physicians' Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance in this issue of THE JOURNAL should re-energize the much needed debate on universal health insurance. More than 40 million Americans lack health insurance and nearly 60 million are without health insurance for a portion of the year. Employers face rising health insurance premiums, and their employees face in...