Health Care Financing Review

Health care reform has dominated public discourse over the past several years, and the recent passage of the Affordable Care Act, rather than quell the rhetoric, has sparked even more debate. Donald A. Barr reviews the current structure of the American health care system, describing the historical and political contexts in which it developed and the core policy issues that continue to confront us today. This comprehensive analysis introduces the various organizations and institutions that make the U.S. health care system work—or fail to work, as the case may be. A principal message of the book is the seeming paradox of the quality of health care in this country—on the one hand it is the best medical care system in the world, on the other it is one of the worst among developed countries because of how it is organized. Barr introduces readers to broad cultural issues surrounding health care policy, such as access, affordability, and quality. He discusses specific elements of U.S. health care, including insurance, especially Medicare and Medicaid, the shift to for-profit managed care, the pharmaceutical industry, issues of long-term care, the plight of the uninsured, medical errors, and nursing shortages. The latest edition of this widely adopted text updates the description and discussion of key sectors of America’s health care system in light of the Affordable Care Act.

As a contribution to the search for suitable and sustainable solutions to finance rising medical care expenditures, the book proposes a typology of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, based on the dimensions of basic vs. supplementary services and mandatory vs. voluntary coverage, to analyse the design and the complex interactions between various financing and insurance arrangements in several OECD countries. This study provides a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the financial and organisational structures of different countries’ healthcare financing and insurance schemes. Its main contributions are the development of a novel and rigorous theoretical framework analysing the economic rationales for the optimal design of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, and an empirical and institutional analysis investigating the consequences for efficiency and affordability of the complex interactions between basic and supplementary sources of financing.

The recent expansion of health insurance coverage in the USA under the Affordable Health Care Act, and current threats to reverse the benefits of this reform, have once again focused the world's attention on the difficult challenges faced by other countries trying to provide better access to healthcare to their population at an affordable cost. This textbook provides a comparative review of financing universal access to healthcare in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The first two chapters of the book provide a framework for financing universal access to healthcare. The remaining eight chapters present case studies of eight OECD countries that have successfully introduced reforms to finance universal access to healthcare for their population through landmark legislative reforms. A concluding chapter focuses on the lessons learned from the OECD and recommendations from policymakers and others who are planning similar reforms. The book is designed as a learning tool for students and as a user guide for policymakers. Contents: Introduction Principles and Practice The UK Canada Australia New Zealand Denmark Norway Sweden Finland Summary of Lessons Learned Readership: Graduate and research-level students and instructors of healthcare financing, healthcare policymakers, and healthcare professionals and investors. Keywords: Universal;Health Financing;Health Insurance;Health Reform;Financial Protection;Political Process;HealthcareReview: "The International Hospital Federation (IHF) is committed to advancing the UHC agenda throughout the world, giving billions of people better access to critical hospital care and basic health services when needed, no matter their income or geographic location in the world. Since its establishment in 1929, the IHF recognizes the essential role of hospitals and health care organizations in providing health care, supporting health services and offering education to health care providers as a critical partner in during the drive for UHC throughout the world. This volume is a tribute to the renewed effort in achieving 'Health for All'." Eric de Roodenbeke Executive Director International Hospital Federation Geneva 2018 "This year, as we commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Alma-Ata Declaration of 'Health for All' in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 1978 and the 70th Anniversary of the UK National Health Service, 1948, we also celebrate the great achievement over the past decades in bringing access to affordable and quality health care for billions of people across the world since the 1950s. Looking forward, at the recent Universal Health Coverage Forum 2017 in Tokyo Japan, the international development community — including both bi-laterals and multi-laterals — committed to the 'Tokyo Declaration on Universal Health Coverage: All Together to Accelerate Progress towards UHC'. This text book makes a valuable contribution by reviewing the political, policy and implementation challenges that countries face in achieving this agenda. The approach used to analyze the eight case studies presented in the volume is a seminal work in comparative health policy." James Christopher Lovelace International Health and Development Advisor Former Director, Health Nutrition and Population, World Bank Former Assistant Deputy Minister of Health, Government of BC, Canada Former Director General of Health, Government of New Zealand Key Features: The main distinguishing feature of this book is to compare OECD countries that have successful experiences in addressing the policy challenges and p