BACKGROUND At the beginning of 2007, health care reforms were implemented in Hungary in order to decrease public expenditure on health care. Reforms involved the increase of co-payments for pharmaceuticals and the introduction of co-payments for health care services. OBJECTIVE The objective of this paper is to examine the progressivity of household expenditure on health care during the reform...

During 1990, health expenditures as a share of gross national product rose to 12.2 percent, up from 11.6 percent in 1989. This dramatic increase is the second largest increase in the past three decades. The national health expenditure estimates presented in this article document rapidly rising health care costs and provide a context for understanding the health care financing crisis facing the ...

This study examines whether private financing erodes public support for maintaining health care budgets in the public sector. It also examines the hypothesis that private financing reduces the real value of nominal government health care budgets by contributing to higher health care costs. The statistical analysis focuses on a set of OECD countries for the 1980s. The results provide little supp...

A desire to enhance protection against health care costs and improve equity of access to health care lies at the core of many health sector financing initiatives. Until recently, international debates about financing and health equity have focused primarily on mechanisms to promote equity in relation to very specific elements of health systems. However, in recent years there has been growing in...

German health care financing is now at the crossroads of fundamental reform. The two main proposals that the new “grand” coalition government must take as its starting point for compromise could hardly be more polarized. The proposal favored by the left, the Bürgerversicherung, a Citizens’ Health Insurance that is compulsory for all, would introduce a new system of proportional taxation, based ...

Although Canada and the United States have fundamentally different systems for financing health care, there are many similarities between the two countries in their approaches to physician payment. The similarities have increased recently with the adoption of the Medicare fee schedule. Canadian provinces have been using fee schedules for more than 20 years. This article provides an overview of ...

Numerous reports have documented the problems of adequate insurance coverage. Among them, a 2004 report of the Center for Rural Affairs entitled Health Care in Rural America outlines the parameters of the problem for rural citizens. This report continues the discussion by examining some recent research that delves into the causes and consequences of inadequate health care financing in rural areas.

BACKGROUND Health-care financing should be equitable. In many developing countries such as Kenya, changes to health-care financing systems are being implemented as a means of providing equitable access to health care with the aim of attaining universal coverage. Vertical equity means that people of dissimilar ability to pay make dissimilar levels of contribution to the health-care financing sys...

The development of a health-care system depends on a country’s economic, political, social and cultural background. Because of China’s transformation over the last 20 years from a socialist economy to a market economy, China’s healthcare services have been converted from social and public goods to market goods without government planning or intervention. Liu’s article (1) in this issue clearly ...

Background and Aim: The health system financing is the process of collecting, pooling and managing financial resources and purchasing healthcare services. Health financing plays an important role in achieving the health system goals and objectives specially universal health coverage. The aim of this study was to strategically analyze the Iranian health financing system and recommend strategies ...