-PDF Download- Who Is Paying For Health Care In Eastern Europe And Central Asia EBOOK

Who is Paying for Health Care in Eastern Europe and Central Asia?

Author: Maureen A. Lewis

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13: 9780821348062

Informal payments in the health sector of Eastern and Central Asia are emerging as a fundamental aspect of health care financing and a serious impediment to health care reform. These informal payments, made to individuals or institutions in cash or in kind, are nearly always for services that are meant to be covered by the health care system. Such private payments to public personnel have created an informal market for health care , and are a form of corruption. This problem's roots are traced to declining revenues which have not coincided with a reduction in buildings, hospital beds and health personnel. In these circumstances informal payments compensate for lost earnings, and therefore reforms to modernise the region's health systems must compete with individuals' personal revenues. Options for addressing this problem include comprehensive anticorruption policies, downsizing of the public health system, reducing the set of services sibsidised by the state, encouraging cost sharing with those who can afford it, improving accountability, and promoting private alternatives.

Getting Better

Author: Owen Smith

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2013-06-10

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 0821398849

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Fifty years ago, health outcomes in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia were not far behind those in Western Europe and well ahead of most other regions of the world. But progress since then has been slow. While life expectancy in the ECA region today is close to the global average, the gap with its western neighbors has doubled, and other middle-income regions have all surpassed ECA. Some countries in the region are doing better, but full convergence with the world’s most advanced health systems is still a long way off. At the same time, survey evidence suggests that the health sector is the top priority for additional investment among populations across the region. The experience of high-income countries also suggests that popular demand for strong and accessible health systems will only grow over time. Yet these aspirations must be reconciled with current fiscal realities. In brief, health sector issues are a challenge here to stay for policy-makers across the ECA region. This report draws on new evidence to explore the development challenge facing health sectors in ECA, and highlights three key agendas to help policy-makers seeking to achieve more rapid convergence with the world’s best performing health systems. The first is the health agenda, where the task is to strengthen public health and primary care interventions to help launch the “cardiovascular revolution” that has taken place in the West in recent decades. The second is the financing agenda, in which growing demand for medical care must be satisfied without imposing undue burden on households or government budgets. The third agenda relates to broader institutional arrangements. Here there are some key reform ingredients common to most advanced health systems that are still missing in many ECA countries. A common theme in each of these three agendas is the emphasis on improving outcomes, or “Getting Better”.

Health

Author: Marc Suhrcke

Publisher: European Observatory

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 9789289072823

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This report is the first comprehensive effort to analyse the economic impact of ill health in the CEE-CIS (Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States) Region. This book explores the interdependence of health and economic development, focusing on the Region's significant economic burden of ill health.

Economic Transition and Health Care Reform

Author: Adam Leive

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2010-03-01

Total Pages: 43

ISBN-13: 1451982186

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This paper exploits the staggered adoption of major concurrent health reforms in countries in Europe and Central Asia after 1990 to estimate their impact on public health expenditure, utilization, and avoidable deaths. While the health systems all derived from the same paradigm under central planning, they have since introduced changes to policies regarding cost-sharing, provider payment, financing, and the rationalization of hospital infrastructure. Social health insurance is predicted to increase this share, although the leads of both social health insurance and primary care fee-for-service suggest endogeneity may be an issue with the outpatient share regressions. Provider payment reforms produce the largest impact on spending, with fee-for-service increasing spending and patient-based payment reducing it. The impact on avoidable deaths is generally negligible, but there is some evidence of improvements due to fee-for-service. Considering the corresponding relative reduction in inpatient admissions and the incentives fee-for-service provides to deliver additional services, perhaps there is an overprovision of services in the primary care setting and an underutilization of more specialized hospital services.

Implementing Health Financing Reform

Author: Joseph Kutzin

Publisher: Observatory Studies

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Analyses the experience with the financing reforms implemented by the countries of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Cauxasus and Central Asia.

Implementing Health Financing Reform

Author: J. Kutzin

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789289042123

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Since 1990 the social and economic policies of the transition countries of central and eastern Europe the Caucasus and central Asia have diverged including the way they have reformed the financing of their health systems. This book analyses this rich experience in a systematic way. It reviews the background to health financing systems and reform in these countries starting with the legacy of the systems in the USSR and central and eastern Europe before 1990 and the consequences (particularly fiscal) of the transition for their organization and performance. Using in-depth country case experienc.

Health Care In Central Asia

Author: Mckee

Publisher: Open University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Central Asia remains one of the least known parts of the former Soviet Union. The five central Asian republics gained their unexpected independence in 1991. They have faced enormous challenges over the last decade in reforming their health care systems, including adverse macro-economic conditions and political instability. To varying extents, each country is diverging from a hierarchical and unsustainable Soviet model health care system. Common strategies have involved devolving the ownership of health services, seeking sources of revenue additional to shrinking state taxes, 'down-sizing' their excessive hospital systems, introducing general practitioners into primary care services, and enhancing the training of health professionals. This book draws on a decade of experience of what has worked and what has not. It is an invaluable source for those working in the region and for others interested in the experiences of countries in political and economic transition.

Reforming Health Care

Author: Željko Bogetić

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Many health care reform proposals expand insurance coverage without fundamentally changing the structure of health insurance. The stay- well plan used in Mendocino County, California, since 1979, offers an alternative insurance structure that provides direct incentives for consumers to control utilization and adopt healthier lifestyles.

Golden Aging

Author: Maurizio Bussolo

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2015-06-23

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1464803536

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Compared to other regions, Europe and Central Asia are by far the oldest. Moreover, population aging is set to accelerate further over the coming decades as large segments turn old. Additionally, some countries such as Russia and certain Eastern European countries are facing a shrinkage of their population. Against this backdrop, this report investigates what stands in the way of societies reaping the full benefits of increased longevity--that is, longer lives and potentially prolonged payoffs from human capital--and what can help to mitigate the possible negative impacts of a smaller and older workforce. Beginning with a focus on demographic trends, the report puts the rapid decline in fertility and contrasting migration trends in the region in a historical perspective and looks forward to the varying paths that population change may follow in the region. Next, it examines the evidence on the likely impact of demographic change on growth and savings, the labor force, firm and economy-wide innovation, poverty and inequality, and intergenerational solidarity. Finally, the report goes beyond diagnostics and puts an emphasis on what we know regarding successful policy interventions, presenting evidence on what has and has not worked in the past.--Publisher description.