This paper assesses the performance of the United States health system in an international context and discusses potential directions for reform. The US health system is unique among OECD countries in its heavy reliance on the private sector for both financing and delivery of health care. The...

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...

An ambitious reform to increase efficiency of the Portuguese health care system was launched in 2002. In contrast to previous attempts of gradual reforms, which were never fully implemented, the strategy has been to create a big bang in the health sector, making changes essentially irreversible....

There are no ready-made data on hospital outputs and inputs which would allow comprehensive international comparisons of hospital efficiency to be carried out. This paper, therefore, relies on selected evidence to compare hospital efficiency in a subset of OECD countries, based on three...

Le système de santé français offre des soins de haute qualité. Les résultats moyens sur le plan de la santé sont bons, le public est très satisfait du système de santé et les restes à charge sont en moyenne faibles. Comme dans d’autres pays de l’OCDE, le progrès technologique...

The highly regarded Austrian health system delivers good quality and easily accessible services, but is costly. Its governance and funding structure is highly fragmented and it makes too much use of inpatient care in hospitals. Entry and competition opportunities are de facto limited in most...

Overall, the health of the Irish population has improved substantially during recent decades and is quite good compared with other OECD countries. However, spending is elevated, partly reflecting a system that is strongly based on hospitals. Population ageing is exacerbating spending pressures....

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...

An ambitious reform to increase efficiency of the Portuguese health care system was launched in 2002. In contrast to previous attempts of gradual reforms, which were never fully implemented, the strategy has been to create a big bang in the health sector, making changes essentially irreversible....