Download or read book Voluntary Health Insurance in Europe Country Experience written by Sagan A. and published by World Health Organization. This book was released on 2016-07-20 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No two markets for voluntary health insurance (VHI) are identical. All differ in some way because they are heavily shaped by the nature and performance of publicly financed health systems and by the contexts in which they have evolved. This volume contains short structured profiles of markets for VHI in 34 countries in Europe. These are drawn from European Union member states plus Armenia Iceland Georgia Norway the Russian Federation Switzerland and Ukraine. The book is aimed at policy-makers and researchers interested in knowing more about how VHI works in practice in a wide range of contexts. Each profile written by one or more local experts identifies gaps in publicly-financed health coverage describes the role VHI plays outlines the way in which the market for VHI operates summarises public policy towards VHI including major developments over time and highlights national debates and challenges. The book is part of a study on VHI in Europe prepared jointly by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe. A companion volume provides an analytical overview of VHI markets across the 34 countries.
Download or read book Voluntary Health Insurance in the European Union written by Elias Mossialos and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Private Health Insurance and the European Union written by Cyril Benoît and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research has paid little attention to date on how European Union law and regulation affect both the public-private mix in healthcare and the organization of private health insurance as an industry. Filling this gap, this collective book provides insights on the political economy of EU insurance regulation, its impact on private health insurers and on its interactions with domestic healthcare policy-making in four countries. Assembling original contributions drafted by a multidisciplinary team, Private Health Insurance and the European Union offers a thorough examination of a largely unrecognized source of EU influence in healthcare – and sheds a new light on the role played by private actors in social policy. Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Download or read book Voluntary Health Insurance in Europe Role and Regulation written by Sagan A. and published by World Health Organization. This book was released on 2016-07-20 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If public resources were unlimited there would be no gaps in health coverage and no real need for VHI. However most health systems face fiscal constraints and VHI is often seen as a way to address these pressures. This study draws from the experiences of 34 countries to assess VHI s contribution to health spending and to understand its role in Europe and in relation to publicly financed coverage. It looks at who sells VHI who purchases it and why. It also reviews public policy towards VHI at national and EU levels and the related national policy debates. The analysis shows that while the different markets for VHI vary considerably in size operation and regulation the vast majority are small. Where there are substantial markets these tend to be the oldest ones having a tradition of non-profit insurers and to be the most heavily regulated to ensure VHI policies are accessible and affordable. The study also suggests that VHI is normally a better way of meeting population health needs than out-of-pocket payments although there are notable exceptions. VHI can contribute to financial protection especially where it plays a substitutive and complementary role covering co-payments. However it is a complex challenging and highly context-specific policy instrument that may undermine other health system goals including equitable access efficiency transparency and accountability even where markets are well regulated. Policy-makers should therefore exercise real caution before expanding VHI to fill coverage gaps. This volume and its companion set of country profiles were developed jointly by the Observatory s LSE hub and the WHO Regional Office for Europe. The study draws on contributions from national experts from the EU EFTA and other countries in Europe.
Download or read book Voluntary Health Insurance in the European Union written by Elias Mossialos and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Assuring the Quality of Health Care in the European Union written by Helena Legido-Quigley and published by World Health Organization. This book was released on 2008 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People have always travelled within Europe for work and leisure, although never before with the current intensity. Now, however, they are travelling for many other reasons, including the quest for key services such as health care. Whatever the reason for travelling, one question they ask is "If I fall ill, will the health care I receive be of a high standard?" This book examines, for the first time, the systems that have been put in place in all of the European Union's 27 Member States. The picture it paints is mixed. Some have well developed systems, setting standards based on the best available evidence, monitoring the care provided, and taking action where it falls short. Others need to overcome significant obstacles.
Download or read book Health at a Glance Europe 2016 State of Health in the EU Cycle written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-23 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fourth edition of Health at a Glance: Europe presents key indicators of health and health systems in the 28 EU countries, 5 candidate countries to the EU and 3 EFTA countries.
Download or read book Health at a Glance Europe 2018 State of Health in the EU Cycle written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2018-11-22 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health at a Glance: Europe 2018 presents comparative analyses of the health status of EU citizens and the performance of the health systems of the 28 EU Member States, 5 candidate countries and 3 EFTA countries.
Download or read book Health at a Glance Europe 2020 State of Health in the EU Cycle written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-19 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2020 edition of Health at a Glance: Europe focuses on the impact of the COVID‐19 crisis. Chapter 1 provides an initial assessment of the resilience of European health systems to the COVID-19 pandemic and their ability to contain and respond to the worst pandemic in the past century.
Download or read book Private Health Insurance written by Sarah Thomson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can private health insurance fill gaps in publicly financed coverage? Does it enhance access to health care or improve efficiency in health service delivery? Will it provide fiscal relief for governments struggling to raise public revenue for health? This book examines the successes, failures and challenges of private health insurance globally through country case studies written by leading national experts. Each case study considers the role of history and politics in shaping private health insurance and determining its impact on health system performance. Despite great diversity in the size and functioning of markets for private health insurance, the book identifies clear patterns across countries, drawing out valuable lessons for policymakers while showing how history and politics have proved a persistent barrier to effective public policy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Download or read book Health Policy and European Union Enlargement written by Mckee and published by McGraw-Hill Education (UK). This book was released on 2004-04-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there may be consensus on the broader issues of the core objectives of the health care system, expectations differ between EU countries, and European national policy-makers. This book seeks firstly to assess the impact of the enlargement process and then to analyse the challenges that lie ahead in the field of health and health policy.
Download or read book Private Medical Insurance in the United Kingdom written by Thomas Foubister and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study provides a descriptive overview of the market for supplementary voluntary health insurance (VHI), or private medical insurance (PMI), in the United Kingdom. The structure of the study reflects the three principal dimensions of the market: the product, demand, and supply. An appendix discusses the market for health cash plans.
Download or read book Impact of Health Insurance in Low and Middle income Countries written by Maria-Luisa Escobar and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past twenty years, many low- and middle-income countries have experimented with health insurance options. While their plans have varied widely in scale and ambition, their goals are the same: to make health services more affordable through the use of public subsidies while also moving care providers partially or fully into competitive markets. Until now, however, we have known little about the actual effects of these dramatic policy changes. Understanding the impact of health insurance-based care is key to the public policy debate of whether to extend insurance to low-income populationsand if so, how to do itor to serve them through other means.
Download or read book Voluntary Health Insurance and Health System Performance in the European Union written by Sarah Thomson and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis examines the usefulness of voluntary health insurance (VHI) as a lever for improving health system performance. It posits that VHI may further health policy goals if it addresses gaps in statutory coverage, if it does not make those who rely on statutory coverage worse off, and if those who need VHI have access to it. The thesis presents four studies that analyse markets for VHI in the European Union; developments in public policy towards VHI, including the implications of the EUlevel regulatory framework for VHI; the impact of VHI on health system performance; the effects of allowing people to choose between statutory and voluntary health insurance; and VHI's influence on consumer mobility where insurers compete to offer statutory benefits. The thesis finds that while VHI is critical to financial protection in some countries, it does not always address key gaps in statutory coverage or reach those who need it, and the depth of its coverage has declined over time, even in heavily regulated markets. VHI has a regressive effect on equity in health financing, lowers equity in the use of health services and does not seem to have a positive effect on efficiency, partly because insurers in many countries lack appropriate incentives. What is more, a failure to align incentives across VHI and statutory health insurance can undermine the efficiency of public spending on health. Many of VHI's negative effects can be attributed to poor policy design. Policy makers can try and ensure VHI contributes to rather than undermines health system performance through the following mechanisms: better understanding of VHI's interaction with the health system; stronger policy design, focusing on aligning incentives in pursuit of health policy goals and ensuring efficiency in the use of public resources; willingness and capacity to regulate the market to secure financial and consumer protection; and regular monitoring and evaluation.
Download or read book Private Voluntary Health Insurance in Development written by Alexander S. Preker and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Private voluntary health insurance already plays an important role in the health sector of many low and middle income countries. The book reviews the context under which private insurance could contribute to an improvement in the financial sustainability of the health sector, financial protection against the costs of illness, household income smoothing, access to care, and market productivity. This volume is the third in aseries of in-depth reviews of the role of health care financing in providing access for low-income populations to needed healthcare, protecting them from the impoverishing effects of illness, and addressing the important issues of social exclusion in government financed programs.
Download or read book Social Health Insurance for Developing Nations written by R. Paul Shaw and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Specialist groups have often advised health ministers and other decision makers in developing countries on the use of social health insurance (SHI) as a way of mobilizing revenue for health, reforming health sector performance, and providing universal coverage. This book reviews the specific design and implementation challenges facing SHI in low- and middle-income countries and presents case studies on Ghana, Kenya, Philippines, Colombia, and Thailand.
Download or read book Minimum Income Schemes in Europe written by International Labour Organisation and published by International Labour Organization. This book was released on 2003 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the paradox of rich countries of Western Europe, who have high levels of poverty whilst proclaiming its eradication as one of the primary social and economic goals. It looks at how policies often do not achieve their goals, why countries need mechanisms to reduce wage inequality and why they choose to provide universal benefits instead of systems of selective benefits targeted at the poor. Along with cross-countries comparisons, the volume also presents analysis of the minimum income in France, Portugal, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, and Greece.
