Equity in Health Care Financing: Evaluation of the Current Urban Employee Health Insurance Reform in China

Abstract Complementary health insurance is divided between the internal market (market principles) and social dimension, wherein the state has an extremely difficult task, as it must create the conditions necessary for the fair and efficient functioning of the health care financing system. Slovenia has failed to successfully accomplish this task, which consists of both ensuring the social dimension and also facilitating the operation of market principles. The aim of this article is not on the functioning of market principles, which are covered by the field of economics, but is instead on analyzing the dichotomy between the internal market (the rules that govern the functioning of the internal market) and the social dimension (the rules that enable the exercise of the social function), and, in this light, analyzes the legal regulation of the Slovenian complementary health insurance. Analysis of the legal regulation highlights the shortcomings in ensuring the social dimension, shortcomings which are, with the help of the measures proposed in the concluding section of the article, remedied by the author.

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Equity in health care financing in Portugal: findings from the Household Budget Survey 2010/2011

Health Economics Policy and Law ◽

10.1017/s1744133115000419 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 233-252 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Carlota Quintal ◽

José Lopes

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Insurance ◽

Health Expenditure ◽

Health Care Financing ◽

Total Health Expenditure ◽

Equity In Health ◽

Household Budget Survey ◽

Out Of Pocket Payments ◽

Household Budget ◽

Equity In Health Care

AbstractEquity in health care financing is recognised as a main goal in health policy. It implies that payments should be linked to capacity to pay and that households should be protected against catastrophic health expenditure (CHE). The risk of CHE is inversely related to the share of out-of-pocket payments (OOP) in total health expenditure. In Portugal, OOP represented 26% of total health expenditure in 2010 [one of the highest among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries]. This study aims to identify the proportion of households with CHE in Portugal and the household factors associated with this outcome. Additionally, progressivity indices are calculated for OOP and private health insurance. Data were taken from the Portuguese Household Budget Survey 2010/2011. The prevalence of CHE is 2.1%, which is high for a developed country with a universal National Health Service. The main factor associated with CHE is the presence of at least one elderly person in households (when the risk quadruples). Payments are particularly regressive for medicines. Regarding the results by regions, the Kakwani index for total OOP is larger (negative) for the Centre and lower, not significant, for the Azores. Payments for voluntary health insurance are progressive.

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Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance and the Promise of Health Insurance Reform

INQUIRY The Journal of Health Care Organization Provision and Financing ◽

10.5034/inquiryjrnl_46.02.187 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 187-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Thomas C. Buchmueller ◽

Alan C. Monheit

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Insurance ◽

Goodness Of Fit ◽

Insurance Coverage ◽

Health Care Financing ◽

Health Insurance Coverage ◽

System Reform ◽

Insurance Reform ◽

Health Insurance Reform ◽

National Debate

The central role that employers play in financing health care is a distinctive feature of the U.S. health care system, and the provision of health insurance through the workplace has important implications well beyond its role as a source of health care financing. In this paper, we consider the “goodness of fit” of employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) in the current economic and health insurance environments and in light of prospects for a vigorous national debate over the shape of health care reform. The main issue that we explore is whether ESI can have a viable role in health system reform efforts or whether such coverage will need to be significantly modified or even abandoned as reform seeks to address important issues in the efficient provision and equitable distribution of health insurance coverage.

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