Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance

Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance PDF Author: Alexander S. Preker
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821385798
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 894

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents an in-depth review on the role of health care financing in improving access for low-income populations to needed care, protecting them from the impoverishing effects of illness, and addressing the important issues of social exclusion in government financed programs.

Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance

Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance PDF Author: Alexander S. Preker
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821385798
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 894

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents an in-depth review on the role of health care financing in improving access for low-income populations to needed care, protecting them from the impoverishing effects of illness, and addressing the important issues of social exclusion in government financed programs.

Care Without Coverage

Care Without Coverage PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309083435
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Get Book Here

Book Description
Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

The Impact of Health Insurance in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

The Impact of Health Insurance in Low- and Middle-Income Countries PDF Author: Maria-Luisa Escobar
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815705611
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
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. Colombia embarked in 1993 on a fifteen-year effort to cover its entire population with insurance, in combination with greater freedom to choose among providers. A decade later Mexico followed suit with a program tailored to its federal system. Several African nations have introduced new programs in the past decade, and many are testing options for reform. For the past twenty years, Eastern Europe has been shifting from government-run care to insurance-based competitive systems, and both China and India have experimental programs to expand coverage. These nations are betting that insurance-based health care financing can increase the accessibility of services, increase providers' productivity, and change the population's health care use patterns, mirroring the development of health systems in most OECD countries. 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 populations—and if so, how to do it—or to serve them through other means. Using recent household data, this book presents evidence of the impact of insurance programs in China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ghana, Indonesia, Namibia, and Peru. The contributors also discuss potential design improvements that could increase impact. They provide innovative insights on improving the evaluation of health insurance reforms and on building a robust knowledge base to guide policy as other countries tackle the health insurance challenge.

Health Insurance Handbook

Health Insurance Handbook PDF Author: Hong Wang
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 082138953X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Get Book Here

Book Description
Many countries that subscribe to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have committed to ensuring access to basic health services for their citizens. Health insurance has been considered and promoted as the major financing mechanism to improve access to health services, as well to provide financial risk protection.

Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance

Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance PDF Author: Alexander S Preker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781299705739
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance: Staying the Course is the fifth volume in a series of in-depth reviews on the role of health care financing in improving access for low-income populations to needed care, protecting them from the impoverishing effects of illness, and addressing the important issues of social exclusion in government financed programs. Success in improving access and financial protection through community and private voluntary health insurance have led many countries to attempt to make membership compulsory and to offer subsidized insurance through the public sector. The protagonists are divided into several camps; from supporters of health insurance to opponents or skeptics. Today many low- and middle-income countries are no longer listening to this dichotomized debate between vertical and horizontal approaches to health care. Instead, they are experimenting with new and innovative approaches to health care financing. Health insurance is becoming a new paradigm for reaching the Millennium Development Goals. The research for this volume shows that when properly designed and coupled with public subsidies, health insurance can contribute to the well-being of poor and middle-class households, not just the rich. And it can contribute to development goals such as improved access to health care, better financial protection against the cost of illness, and reduced social exclusion. The book is organized into three main parts. Major policy directions in financing health care are discussed in Part 1, with a particular focus on the pre-conditions for scaling up. Part 2 moves from theory to practice with overviews and country level studies on health insurance development. Finally, part 3 highlights the implementation challenges.

The World Health Report 2006

The World Health Report 2006 PDF Author: World Health Organization
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN: 9241563176
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
The 2006 World Health Report focuses on the chronic shortages of doctors, midwives, nurses and other health care support workers in the poorest countries of the world where they are most needed. This is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa, which has only four in every hundred global health workers but has a quarter of the global burden of disease, and less than one per cent of the world's financial resources. Poor working conditions, high rates of attrition due to illness and migration, and education systems that are unable to pick up the slack reflect the depth of the challenges in these crisis countries. This report considers the challenges involved and sets out a 10-year action plan designed to tackle the crisis over the next ten years, by which countries can strengthen their health system by building their health workforces and institutional capacity with the support of global partners.

Private Voluntary Health Insurance in Development

Private Voluntary Health Insurance in Development PDF Author: Alexander S. Preker
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821366203
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 460

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Social Reinsurance

Social Reinsurance PDF Author: David M. Dror
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821350416
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 548

Get Book Here

Book Description
Annotation This volume views community-based microinsurance as an incremental first step to improved financial protection and better access to health services for the poor. While community-based financing can be structured in various ways, this volume focuses on reinsurance as a mechanism for improving micro-level health insurance units. It outlines strategies and policies that can be applied by countries and donors to improve access to health care services.

Global Marketplace for Private Health Insurance

Global Marketplace for Private Health Insurance PDF Author: Alexander S. Preker
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821376772
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 532

Get Book Here

Book Description
Financial protection against the cost of illness and inclusion of vulnerable groups will require better mobilization and use of private means. Private voluntary health insurance already plays an important role in mobilizing additional resources to the health sector and protecting against the catastrophic cost of illness in some countries. This review explores the context under which private voluntary health insurance could contribute to an improvement in the sustainability of the health sector and financial protection in other countries.

Moral Hazard in Health Insurance

Moral Hazard in Health Insurance PDF Author: Amy Finkelstein
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538685
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Get Book Here

Book Description
Addressing the challenge of covering heath care expenses—while minimizing economic risks. Moral hazard—the tendency to change behavior when the cost of that behavior will be borne by others—is a particularly tricky question when considering health care. Kenneth J. Arrow’s seminal 1963 paper on this topic (included in this volume) was one of the first to explore the implication of moral hazard for health care, and Amy Finkelstein—recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic—here examines this issue in the context of contemporary American health care policy. Drawing on research from both the original RAND Health Insurance Experiment and her own research, including a 2008 Health Insurance Experiment in Oregon, Finkelstein presents compelling evidence that health insurance does indeed affect medical spending and encourages policy solutions that acknowledge and account for this. The volume also features commentaries and insights from other renowned economists, including an introduction by Joseph P. Newhouse that provides context for the discussion, a commentary from Jonathan Gruber that considers provider-side moral hazard, and reflections from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow. “Reads like a fireside chat among a group of distinguished, articulate health economists.” —Choice