Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• William Hsiao
• Dean T. Jamison
• William P. McGreevey
• Winnie Yip

Titel

Financing health care: Issues and options for China

Ort / Verlag

The World Bank

Erscheinungsjahr

1997

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This is the third World Bank policy study of China's health sector. This report looks in greater detail at the impact of China's move toward a market economy on the financing and organization of health care and recommends a number of steps China can take to reform health care financing. It draws extensively on fifteen background papers prepared between November, 1994, and September, 1995. The report is arranged as follows: Chapter 1 sets up the analytical framework for evaluating health finance policies by assessing the performance of China's health sector and examining the health policy issues it raises. The assessment uses four broad measures of performance: health status, financial access to health services, efficiency, and total cost. Chapter 2 examines the current state of health services and their financing, the rural health delivery system, sources and uses of health spending, fiscal barriers to bigger and more equitable health budgets, and health coverage in rural and urban areas. Chapter 3 reviews the status of public health programs; uses immunizations, tuberculosis control, and anti-tobacco efforts to illustrate in current public health programs; and suggests broad directions for change in health financing, program strategies, and content. Chapter 4 discusses how targeted health assistance might best be achieved and the likely costs of such assistance. It focuses on the rural poor, among whom absolute poverty is most prevalent. Chapter 5 reviews health sector efficiency issues, and proposes reforms in pricing, in the planning and coordination of infrastructure, and human resources that could significantly improve efficiency in both rural and urban areas. Chapter 7 explores options for efficient risk pooling in rural areas, specifically community financing. Finally, Chapter 8 proposes ways and means to pursue priorities in government health spending, and discusses their implications for the Chinese health care system.