Attaining the "Health for all" commitment. Which model for health insurance ? Some lessons from the European and USA experiences

Isabelle Hirtzlin ()
Additional contact information
Isabelle Hirtzlin: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: In 1998 the Fifty-first World Health Assembly passed the "health-for-all policy for the twenty-first century". During this assembly the Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) reaffirmed their commitment to the principle that "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being". Even if there is now a worldwide consensus that health insurance plans should cover the whole population to attain the highest standard of health, a question still remains unsolved. What kind of health insurance coverage is the most likely to attain this goal efficiently? European countries are frequently cited as exemplary for the high level of health attained by their population, while sometimes very different health insurance models are implemented today in these countries. This paper discusses the advantages and shortfalls of the different options, for health insurance and population coverage that have been chosen in Europe. Four topics are treated successively: the choice between private and public insurance, how to guarantee the balance between revenue and expenditure? What should be the basis for health insurance payment? And finally should health care services be totally free of charge for the patients?

Keywords: health for all; health insurance; Europe; financing; santé pour tous; assurance santé; financement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-12-04
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00942771
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-00942771/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-00942771

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().