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Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary
Health financing is a complex health system function, which cannot be analysed accurately without tracking each step of the flow of funds separately. We analysed the revenue mix of the Hungarian health insurance fund from 1994 to 2015 and discuss the policy implications of our findings. We used the...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
World Health Organization
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747025/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31551630 http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.218982 |
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author | Szigeti, Szabolcs Evetovits, Tamas Kutzin, Joseph Gaál, Péter |
author_facet | Szigeti, Szabolcs Evetovits, Tamas Kutzin, Joseph Gaál, Péter |
author_sort | Szigeti, Szabolcs |
collection | PubMed |
description | Health financing is a complex health system function, which cannot be analysed accurately without tracking each step of the flow of funds separately. We analysed the revenue mix of the Hungarian health insurance fund from 1994 to 2015 and discuss the policy implications of our findings. We used the System of Health Accounts published in 2000 and the revised version of 2011, which introduced separate classifications for the sources of health expenditure. Based on the 2000 version, health insurance contributions were the main source of public funding in Hungary. According to the 2011 version, nearly 70% of health insurance fund revenues came from government tax transfers in 2015, illustrating the striking difference in how revenues and expenditures are reported using this version. Use of the 2011 version will better inform national policy-making and international comparisons and facilitate documentation and analysis of how countries have adapted their revenue mix to changing macroeconomic circumstances. The finding that Hungary has a predominantly tax-funded social health insurance system suggests that traditional understanding and description of health-financing models are no longer adequate and may limit consideration of potential resource-generation options. Hungary is also a good example of how separating revenue generation and pooling broadens policy options to tackle gaps in social health insurance coverage, although the government did not act on these due to the lack of a consistent health-financing strategy. The findings may be particularly relevant for low- and middle-income countries that are trying to expand social health insurance coverage despite limited formal employment. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6747025 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | World Health Organization |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-67470252019-09-24 Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary Szigeti, Szabolcs Evetovits, Tamas Kutzin, Joseph Gaál, Péter Bull World Health Organ Policy & Practice Health financing is a complex health system function, which cannot be analysed accurately without tracking each step of the flow of funds separately. We analysed the revenue mix of the Hungarian health insurance fund from 1994 to 2015 and discuss the policy implications of our findings. We used the System of Health Accounts published in 2000 and the revised version of 2011, which introduced separate classifications for the sources of health expenditure. Based on the 2000 version, health insurance contributions were the main source of public funding in Hungary. According to the 2011 version, nearly 70% of health insurance fund revenues came from government tax transfers in 2015, illustrating the striking difference in how revenues and expenditures are reported using this version. Use of the 2011 version will better inform national policy-making and international comparisons and facilitate documentation and analysis of how countries have adapted their revenue mix to changing macroeconomic circumstances. The finding that Hungary has a predominantly tax-funded social health insurance system suggests that traditional understanding and description of health-financing models are no longer adequate and may limit consideration of potential resource-generation options. Hungary is also a good example of how separating revenue generation and pooling broadens policy options to tackle gaps in social health insurance coverage, although the government did not act on these due to the lack of a consistent health-financing strategy. The findings may be particularly relevant for low- and middle-income countries that are trying to expand social health insurance coverage despite limited formal employment. World Health Organization 2019-05-01 2019-02-28 /pmc/articles/PMC6747025/ /pubmed/31551630 http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.218982 Text en (c) 2019 The authors; licensee World Health Organization. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization or products. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL. |
spellingShingle | Policy & Practice Szigeti, Szabolcs Evetovits, Tamas Kutzin, Joseph Gaál, Péter Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary |
title | Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary |
title_full | Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary |
title_fullStr | Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary |
title_full_unstemmed | Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary |
title_short | Tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, Hungary |
title_sort | tax-funded social health insurance: an analysis of revenue sources, hungary |
topic | Policy & Practice |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747025/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31551630 http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.218982 |
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