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Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage?

After the fall of communism, the healthcare systems of Central and Eastern European countries underwent enormous transformation, resulting in departure from publicly financed healthcare. This had significant adverse effects on equity in healthcare, which are still evident. In this paper, we analyzed...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tambor, Marzena, Klich, Jacek, Domagała, Alicja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7913209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33546157
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041382
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author Tambor, Marzena
Klich, Jacek
Domagała, Alicja
author_facet Tambor, Marzena
Klich, Jacek
Domagała, Alicja
author_sort Tambor, Marzena
collection PubMed
description After the fall of communism, the healthcare systems of Central and Eastern European countries underwent enormous transformation, resulting in departure from publicly financed healthcare. This had significant adverse effects on equity in healthcare, which are still evident. In this paper, we analyzed the role of government and households in financing healthcare in eight countries (EU-8): Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. A desk research method was applied to collect quantitative data on healthcare expenditures and qualitative data on gaps in universal health coverage. A linear regression analysis was used to analyze a trend in health expenditure over the years 2000–2018. Our results indicate that a high reliance on out-of-pocket payments persists in many EU-8 countries, and only a few countries have shown a significant downward trend over time. The gaps in universal coverage in the EU-8 countries are due to explicit rationing (a limited benefit package, patient cost sharing) and implicit mechanisms (wait times). There is need to increase the role of public financing in CEE countries through budget prioritization, reducing patient co-payments for medical products and medicines, and extending the benefit package for these goods, as well as improving the quality of care.
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spelling pubmed-79132092021-02-28 Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage? Tambor, Marzena Klich, Jacek Domagała, Alicja Int J Environ Res Public Health Article After the fall of communism, the healthcare systems of Central and Eastern European countries underwent enormous transformation, resulting in departure from publicly financed healthcare. This had significant adverse effects on equity in healthcare, which are still evident. In this paper, we analyzed the role of government and households in financing healthcare in eight countries (EU-8): Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. A desk research method was applied to collect quantitative data on healthcare expenditures and qualitative data on gaps in universal health coverage. A linear regression analysis was used to analyze a trend in health expenditure over the years 2000–2018. Our results indicate that a high reliance on out-of-pocket payments persists in many EU-8 countries, and only a few countries have shown a significant downward trend over time. The gaps in universal coverage in the EU-8 countries are due to explicit rationing (a limited benefit package, patient cost sharing) and implicit mechanisms (wait times). There is need to increase the role of public financing in CEE countries through budget prioritization, reducing patient co-payments for medical products and medicines, and extending the benefit package for these goods, as well as improving the quality of care. MDPI 2021-02-03 2021-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7913209/ /pubmed/33546157 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041382 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tambor, Marzena
Klich, Jacek
Domagała, Alicja
Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage?
title Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage?
title_full Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage?
title_fullStr Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage?
title_full_unstemmed Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage?
title_short Financing Healthcare in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Far Are We from Universal Health Coverage?
title_sort financing healthcare in central and eastern european countries: how far are we from universal health coverage?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7913209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33546157
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041382
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