Unless the concept is clearly understood, "universal coverage" (or universal health coverage, UHC) can be used to justify practically any health financing reform or scheme. This paper unpacks the definition of health financing for universal coverage as used in the World Health Organization's World health report 2010 to show how UHC embodies specific health system goals and intermediate objectiv...

German Statutory Health Insurance (national health insurance) has remained relatively intact over the past century, even in the face of governmental change and recent reforms. The overall story of German national health insurance is one of political compromise and successful implementation of communitarian values. Several key lessons from the German experience can be applied to the American hea...

Payment incentives have significant consequences for the equity and efficiency of a health care system, and have recently come to the fore in health policy reforms. This paper first discusses the economic rationale for apparent international convergence toward payment systems with mixed demand and supplyside cost sharing. We then summarize the recent payment reforms undertaken in Taiwan, Korea ...

One recommendation to states and communities from key stakeholders in the 1997 Impact Analysis was to include both acute and extended care services in managed care reforms. (For purposes of this study, “acute care” is defined as brief, short-term treatment with, in some cases, limited intermediate care also provided, and “extended care” is defined as care extending beyond the actute care stabil...

To achieve universal health coverage (UHC), a range of health-financing reforms, including removal of user fees and the expansion of social health insurance, have been implemented in many countries. While the focus of much research and discussion on UHC has been on the impact of health-financing reforms on population coverage, health-service utilization and out-of-pocket payments, the implicati...

During the 1990s, the social health insurance schemes of Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Israel were significantly reformed by the introduction of freedom of choice (open enrolment) of health insurer. This was introduced alongside a system of risk adjustment to compensate health insurers for enrolees with predictable high medical expenses. Despite the similarity in the health...

India pursued one of the largest programs of land reforms on record since the 1950s. These reforms were aimed at securing access to land for the vast majority of rural households dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. There is mixed evidence on the effect of these reforms on poverty. Moreover, the long run welfare consequences of these reforms have not been evaluated. Using across-stat...

The concept of accountable care organizations (ACOs) has been set forth in recently enacted national health reform legislation as a strategy to address current shortcomings in the U.S. health care system. This paper focuses on implementation issues related to these organizations, building on some initial examples. We seek to clarify definitions and key principles, provide an update on implement...

Private health insurance (PHI) is an important part of the Australian health system. During the introduction of the recent PHI reforms it was argued that, without the reforms, the public hospital system would undoubtedly collapse under the increased demand for public health services. The increase in PHI coverage might also have been expected to result in an increase in the revenue earned by pub...

The quest for greater efficiency, fairness and responsiveness to the expectation of the people that system serve have brought about three generations of health system reforms in the twentieth century. The first generation saw the founding of national health care systems and extension to middle income nations of social insurance systems in the 1940s and 1950s. By the late 1960s the rising costs ...