Rising healthcare costs have sparked debate about the best way to provide high-quality affordable health insurance. We discuss the potential for regulated insurance markets to outperform single-payer public insurance. We use as an example the private Medicare plans that now provide insurance to almost a third of seniors in the United States. The evidence suggests that private plans can limit co...

A paper by Selden and Sing (2008) reminds us of what was at stake 45 years ago, when Emmett Hall recommended universal public medical insurance over private-public alternatives. While focusing exclusively on the United States, it also helps to explain why universal pharmacare is being diverted into that same private-public dead end through public "catastrophic" coverage. Governments finance, th...

Expansion of health care coverage has risen to the top of the legislative agenda in California. One question within the health care reform debate is whether expanding health insurance to all Californians will attract new undocumented immigrants who would come primarily for those benefits. A review of studies on immigration and public benefits suggests that the net attraction of any major expans...

The purpose of the article is to determine excellence in the implementation of Slovenian physicians’ work in public healthcare and the influence of quality management and excellence in public healthcare, and, above all stress management and health preservation of Slovenian physicians. Leading employees nowadays pose a particular challenge for every manager. Healthcare system is an organised sys...

This paper studies the implications of a societal aversion to inequality for the optimal design of a public health care system. Inequality aversion is introduced by postulating a strictly concave ex post social welfare function. Illnesses are characterized by three factors: the agent’s health with treatment, the agent’s health without treatment, and the cost of treatment. It is shown that the o...

In this study I examine the effects of government subsidies to employer-provided health insurance on the decision to purchase insurance, and on utilization of publicly funded health services. Using unique variation in tax subsidies across Canadian provinces as an instrument, I estimate the effects of these subsidies on the demand for supplemental health insurance and their extended effects on t...

Health shocks are among the most important unprotected risks for microfinance clients, but the take-up of micro health insurance typically remains limited. This paper attributes low enrollment rates to a social dilemma. Our theory is that in jointly liable groups, insurance is a public good. Clients can rely on contributions from group members to cope with shocks. Less risk averse clients have ...

Against the backdrop of a sluggish economy and rapidly rising health insurance premiums, the proportion of Americans under age 65 covered by employer-sponsored insurance fell dramatically from 67 percent to 63 percent between 2001 and 2003. Although the decline in employer coverage could have spurred a large increase in the uninsured, the proportion of Americans without health insurance did not...

Background Private health insurance is one of the sources of funds for financing health care apart from direct taxes, public insurance and out of pocket payments. Regardless of the choice between a social and private insurance, health insurance ownership has been linked with lower OOP. Thus, health insurance as a type of health care financing, no doubt, will be one of the financing mechanisms i...