The Italian health system is highly decentralized, with most administrative and organizational powers governed by Regions and rather limited powers at national level. The state has full control over the definition of the core benefit package (LEA) but there is evidence that the actual provision of these services varies greatly across Regions.

BACKGROUND Urban population in China is mainly covered by two medical insurance schemes: the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI) for urban employees in formal sector and the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) for the left urban residents, mainly the unemployed, the elderly and children. This paper studies the effects of UEBMI and URBMI on health services utilisation in Sh...

Objectives: Korea achieved universal population coverage through national health insurance in 1989. However, out-of-pocket payments (OOP) still accounted for 36% of total health expenditure in 2006. This paper aims to provide evidence for improving the benefit package through analyzing household financial burden. Methods: OOP and the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure were analysed us...

Background: It is difficult to provide health care services to all those in need of such services due to limited resources and unlimited demands. Thus, priority setting and rationing have to be applied. This study aimed at critically examining the concept of rationing in health sector and identifying its purposes, influencing factors, mechanisms, and outcomes.     Methods: The c...

OBJECTIVE(S) To assess how willing people would be to join a voluntary health insurance scheme and to see how they respond to changes in the benefit package. We also examined willingness to cross-subsidise the poor. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SUBJECTS Two thousand two hundread and twenty four households comprising of 1,163 uninsured household heads asked about their willingness to pay fo...

BACKGROUND There are various criteria and methods to develop Basic Health Benefit Package (BHBP) in world health systems. The present study aimed to extract criteria used in health systems in different countries around the world using scoping review method. METHODS A systematic search was carried out in Cochrane Library, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, ProQuest, World Bank, Wo...

We study the role of health benefits in an employer's compensation strategy, given the overall goal of minimizing total compensation cost (wages plus health-insurance cost). When employees' health status is private information, the employer's basic benefit package consists of a base wage and a moderate health plan, with a generous plan available for an additional charge. We show that in setting...

The Summer/Fall 1993 issue of The Future of Children examined how to make the overall process of reforming the health care system work for the benefit of children. That earlier issue discussed the ways in which a health care benefits package might be tailored for children, the effects of managed care on children and pregnant women, ways to reform the private health insurance market, how to pay ...