Sustainable Health Care Financing In Southern Africa

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 385. Since the advent of reform in 1992, the Russian authorities have made substantial strides toward creating a market economy through privatization. Recently, Russian authorities have established an institutional framework for a case-by-case approach that ensures transparency and competition through the use of independent financial and other advisers. This paper contains the principal presentations made at a World Bank workshop on the lessons of international experience in case-by-case privatization.

The health systems we enjoy today, and expected medical advances in the future, will be difficult to finance from public resources without major reforms. Public health spending in OECD countries has grown rapidly over most of the last half century. These spending increases have contributed to ...

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 294. Presents case studies that focus on user fees and self-financing health insurance as a means of contributing to efficiency, equity, and sustainable financing in the health sector. User fees are emphasized as a form of cost-sharing because private, out-of-pocket expenditures for health account for nearly one-half of total expenditures in Africa. Evidence presented in this report suggests that self-financing insurance is more prevalent in many countries than had been previously thought.

Since the private health sector is an important, and often dominant, provider of health services in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is the job of governments as the stewards of the health system to engage with it. Increasing the contributions that the existing private health sector is making to public health is an important, but often neglected, element of meeting the daunting health-related challenges facing African nations. This Report presents newly collected data on how and how effectively each country in the Africa region is engaging the respective private health sectors; and how the engagement compares across the region. While the approach taken by governments varies greatly between countries, there is much room for improvement in the Africa region overall to engage more effectively and room for exchange of ideas and good practices on how to do so. Improved solutions on the policy/regulatory side should be supported by effective organization of the private sector itself and by adjustments in donor programs that take the dynamics of the private health sector better into account.

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.

In Mexico City or Nairobi or Manila, a young girl in one part of the city is near death with measles, while, not far away, an elderly man awaits transplantation of a new kidney. How is one denied a cheap, simple, and effective remedy while another can command the most advanced technology medicine can offer? Can countries like Mexico, Kenya, or the Philippines, with limited funds and medical resources, find an affordable, effective, and fair way to balance competing health needs and demands? Such dilemmas are the focus of this insightful book in which leading international researchers bring together the latest thinking on how developing countries can reform health care. The choices these poorer countries make today will determine the pace of health improvement for vast numbers of people now and in the future. Exploring new ideas and concepts, as well as the practical experiences of nations in all parts of the world, this volume provides valuable insights and information to both generalists and specialists interested in how health care will look in the world of the twenty-first century.