In recent years, a series of wide-ranging reforms designed to make greater use of market mechanisms has succeeded in eliminating shortages, raising efficiency and improving citizen satisfaction. Nevertheless, spending accelerated after the reforms, and per capita spending on health is now one of...

This paper examines the prospects for reform of Russia’s healthcare system. It begins by exploring a number of fundamental imbalances that characterise the current half-reformed system of healthcare provision before going on to assess the government’s plans for going ahead with healthcare...

This paper presents a set of indicators to assess health care system performance. It also presents new comparative data on health care policies and institutions for OECD countries. This set of indicators allows the empirical characterisation of health care systems and the identification of...

From the mid-1980s, New Zealand was widely considered to be a leader in liberalising product market regulation (PMR). However, the reform of PMR has lost momentum over recent years. Many areas of PMR are still consistent with best practice, but New Zealand is no longer assessed to be at the...

This paper examines within an international context, the healthcare system in Hungary. While the system resembles in many of its broad features those of other OECD countries, Hungarians have the lowest life expectancy in the OECD and its rate of increase over the last 20 years has been much...

The aim of the recent healthcare reform was to increase the sustainability of healthcare finances, by reducing its negative impact on employment and increasing cost-effectiveness via enhanced competition. Higher budget contributions will help decouple healthcare finances from labour income a...

This study reviews health-system reforms in OECD countries over the past several decades and their impact on the following policy goals: ensuring access to services; improving the <I>quality</I> of care and its outcomes; allocating an “appropriate” level of resources to health care (<I>macroeconomic...</i></i>

This paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the Swedish healthcare system and the challenges that it will face in the future. It discusses ways to improve access to primary care, including different methods for paying GPs, whether access is less equitable than in other countries and the...

Given the deterioration in public finances, there is now very little scope for higher spending. Raising public sector efficiency would free up resources and yield better outcomes with the same inputs, helping to stimulate productivity and thus potential growth. Raising efficiency in tax...

Since the transformation following the Communist era, Poland has matched improvements in health outcomes of the most developed OECD countries, although without catching up the ground lost during the 1970s and 1980s. The health status of the population remains relatively poor, although after...