Health Insurance Systems: An International Comparison offers united and synthesized information currently available only in scattered locations - if at all - to students, researchers, and policymakers. The book provides helpful contexts, so people worldwide can understand various healthcare systems. By using it as a guide to the mechanics of different healthcare systems, readers can examine existing systems as frameworks for developing their own. Case examples of countries adopting insurance characteristics from other countries enhance the critical insights offered in the book. If more information about health insurance alternatives can lead to better decisions, this guide can provide an essential service. - Delivers fundamental insights into the different ways that countries organize their health insurance systems - Presents ten prominent health insurance systems in one book, facilitating comparisons and contrasts, to help draw policy lessons - Countries included are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States - Helps students, researchers, and policymakers searching for innovative designs by providing cases describing what countries have learned from each other

Thomas Rice is Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. A health economist, his areas of interest include international health care systems, health insurance, competition and regulation, and behavioral economics. He has also written books on health economics, the behavioral economics of health, and the U.S. health care system. Dr. Rice was previously editor of the journal, Medical Care Research and Review, and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. He has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of AcademyHealth, the leading U.S. organization focused on the health services and health policy research, and has chaired its Board of Directors and directed its Annual Research Meeting.

Health Insurance Systems: An International Comparison offers united and synthesized information currently available only in scattered locations - if at all - to students, researchers, and policymakers. The book provides helpful contexts, so people worldwide can understand various healthcare systems. By using it as a guide to the mechanics of different healthcare systems, readers can examine existing systems as frameworks for developing their own. Case examples of countries adopting insurance characteristics from other countries enhance the critical insights offered in the book. If more information about health insurance alternatives can lead to better decisions, this guide can provide an essential service.

• Delivers fundamental insights into the different ways that countries organize their health insurance systems
• Presents ten prominent health insurance systems in one book, facilitating comparisons and contrasts, to help draw policy lessons
• Countries included are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States
• Helps students, researchers, and policymakers searching for innovative designs by providing cases describing what countries have learned from each other

Part 1: Introduction 1. The Need for and Challenges of International Comparisons 2. Overview of Key Components of National Health Insurance Systems

Part 2: The Countries A. Universal Coverage Systems with no Choice of Insurer 3. The United Kingdom 4. Canada 5. Sweden 6. Australia 7. France 8. Japan

B. University Coverage Systems with Competing Insurers 9. Germany 10. Switzerland 11. The Netherlands

C. Systems Without Universal Coverage 12. The United States

Part 3: Assessment 13. Summary of Health System Characteristics 14. Efficiency 15. Equity 16. Lessons