Journal of health economics
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Comparative Study
Equity in the finance of health care: some international comparisons.
This paper presents the results of a ten-country comparative study of health care financing systems and their progressivity characteristics. It distinguishes between the tax-financed systems of Denmark, Portugal and the U. ⋯ It concludes that tax-financed systems tend to be proportional or mildly progressive, that social insurance systems are regressive and that private systems are even more regressive. Out-of-pocket payments are in most countries an especially regressive means of raising health care revenues.
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Comparative Study
Equity in the delivery of health care: some international comparisons.
This paper presents the results of an eight-country comparative study of equity in the delivery of health care. Equity is taken to mean that persons in equal need of health care should be treated the same, irrespective of their income. Two methods are used to investigate inequity: an index of inequity based on standardized expenditure shares, and a regression-based test. The results suggest that inequity exists in most of the eight countries, but there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between a country's delivery system and the degree to which persons in equal need are treated the same.