Funding Health Care : Options for Europe

The question of how to generate sufficient revenue to pay for health care has become a serious concern for nearly all European policy-makers. This book examines the advantages and disadvantages of funding arrangements currently in use across Europe. Adopting a cross-national, cross-disciplinary perspective, it assesses the relative merits of the main methods of raising resources including taxation; social, voluntary and supplemental forms of insurance; and self-pay including co-payments. Chapters written by leading health policy analysts review recent evidence and experience in both eastern and western Europe. The volume is introduced by a summary chapter which integrates conceptual issues in funding with an overview of the main advantages and disadvantages of each method of funding drawn from the expert chapters. This is an important book for students of health policy, health economics, public policy and managment, and for health managers and policy makers.

Elias Mossialos is Reader in Health Policy, Department of Social Policy and Co-Director of LSE Health and Social Care at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Research Director of the European Observatory on Health Care Systems. He has recently co-edited Health Care and Cost Containment in the European Union and Public Health Policies in the European Union.

Anna Dixon is a Research Officer of the European Observatory on Health Care Systems and a Research Associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has edited a number of reports on the health care systems of western European countries.

Josep Figueras is the head of the Secretariat and a Research Director of the European Observatory on Health Care Systems, and is Regional Adviser for the Health Systems Analysis at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. He was co-editor of Critical Challenges for Health Care Reform in Europe.

Joe Kutzin is currently working for the World Health Organization in Kyrgyzstan as a health policy advisor. He has over 15 years' experience as a health economist, working with WHO, the World Bank, and as a consultant. He has a Master's Degree in Development Economics from Boston University.