Health Care Reform Around the World

Health care reforms around the world-from Europe and North America to Africa, Latin America and Asia-seem to all be market-oriented reforms driven by international business interests and right wing political parties. There seems to be a sudden and broad concern with the efficiency of medical care, with the assertion that democratically or professionally run systems are inherently inefficient. Far less concern is evident for the more traditional values held regarding medical care, effectiveness (or quality) and equity. The fact is that we have little good cross-national research that systematically addresses the reform issue. This book addresses that problem, and attempts to look at health care reforms in a number of countries, representing as wide a spectrum as possible, and using a common conceptual framework that allows for comparable information to be gathered and presented on each, despite differing levels of socio-economic development. The authors agreed on a set of models that were thought to provide reasonable guidance in answering the questions of the source of pressures for reform, the alternative modes of organization that have been found in the world in recent years, and the direction of change among those alternatives.

ANDREW C. TWADDLE is Professor of Sociology, University of Missouri, Columbia.

International Comparisons of Health Care Reform by Andrew C. Twaddle Western Europe and North America Health System Reforms: The United Kingdom's Experience by David J. Hunter Ideaology and Interests: Explaining Swedish Medical Care Reform 1991-1994: An Overview by Andrew C. Twaddle Canada: The Changing Faces of Health Care in Canada by Chrystel Woodard and Catherine Charles The United States: Live Free and Die? by Al Wesson Eastern Europe Introducing Compulsory Health Insurance in Central Europe: Redirecting a Wheel? by Stipe Oreskovic The Reform that, Alas, Succeeded (The Case of Serbia) by Vuk Stambolovic The Inelasticity of Institutional Patterns: An Impediment to Health Care Reform in Post-Communist Russia by Mark Field Middle East Modernization and Health Reform in Saudi Arabia by Eugene Gallagher Health Care Reform in Israel by Revital Gross and Ofra Anson Latin America Health Care Reform in Argentina by Susanna Belmartino The Unbearable Homogeneity of Reform: The Mexican Health Care System Reform by Luis Duran-Aranas, et al. Asia and Oceania Health Sector Reform: The Indian Experience by Rama Baru Reform of the Australian Health Care Landscape: The Contested Terrain of Development and Innovation by Donald Stewart and Robert Bush Rural Health Care Reforms in the People's Republic of China by Ofra Anson Health Care Reform Initiative in Thailand by Pathom Sawanpanyalert Conclusion Health Care Reform and Global Hegemony by Andrew C. Twaddle