Cost-sharing for health care is high on the policy agenda in many European countries that struggle with deficits in their public budget. However, such policy often meets with public opposition, which might delay or even prevent its implementation. Increased reliance on patient payments may also...

The introduction of user fees for health care services is a new phenomenon in Central-Eastern European Countries. In Hungary, user fees were first introduced in 2007, but abolished one year later after a referendum. The aim of our study is to describe the experiences and expectations of health...

This article discusses the financial reforms in the Bulgarian public health care sector. Since 1998, when the Bulgarian parliament passed the Health Insurance Act, compulsory contributions for social health insurance have become the main source of health care financing. They replaced the...

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on the outcomes of the financial reforms in the Russian public healthcare sector.

In the Netherlands, pregnant women at low risk of complications during pregnancy, have the opportunity to choose freely between giving birth at home or in a hospital maternity unit. This study analyses how various attributes of obstetric care, socio-economic characteristics and attitudes...