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 book is the first in a series to be published by Open University Press for the European Observatory on Health Care Systems, a partnership of organizations including the WHO Regional Office for Europe, which also provides the secretariat.