Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- Part I Points of departure -- Introduction to part I -- 2 The general principles of reform -- Ethical postulates -- The desired attributes of institutions and coordination mechanisms -- The desired proportions of allocation -- Concluding remarks -- 3 The characteristics of the health sector -- A general overview -- The value attached to health -- The norm of equal access -- Uncertainty and the demand for insurance -- Asymmetric information -- Selection -- Adverse selection -- Risk selection -- Moral hazard -- Supply-side power and monopoly -- The defenselessness of the patient -- Mounting costs -- Provision and financing: classification -- Four key entities -- The supply (provision or delivery) side -- The demand (financing) side -- The degree of integration between purchasers, insurers, and providers -- Payment system incentives -- Empirical evidence -- Supply-side incentives -- Payment system incentives and property rights -- Empirical evidence -- Conclusion -- 4 Some international experiences -- The economic mechanisms in the industrialized democracies -- A special case: the US health sector -- 5 The health sector in Eastern Europe: the initial state -- The economic mechanism of "classical socialism" -- Redefining the right to provision -- The separation of financing from provision -- Financing -- A) State budget -- (B) Compulsory social insurance -- (C) Voluntary insurance -- (D) Direct payment by patients -- Delivery: public institutions -- Delivery: legal private activity -- Primary-care physicians -- Dentists -- Other physicians in private practice -- Doctors' earnings and gratuities -- Economic indices for the health sector and population health status -- Part II Guidelines for reform.

Introduction to part II -- 6 The demand side: financing, benefits, and organization of insurance -- The guiding ideas behind the recommendations -- The financing of basic care -- Redistribution through financing -- A broader base -- Minimum requirement -- Co-payments -- Earmarked contributions -- Sector neutrality and risk adjustment -- Co-payments -- The basic benefit package -- Organization of insurance: ownership, decentralization, and managed competition -- The scope and financing of supplementary care -- The role of employers -- 7 The supply side: delivery-system ownership, organization, and contracting -- Encouraging private initiative -- Strengthening the quasi-market elements in the public sector -- 8 The interaction of supply and demand: pricing,payment, hard budget constraints, and overall health-sector development -- Reasonable prices -- The hard budget constraint and other incentives -- Doctors' pay: the medical profession and the reform -- Neutrality between sectors -- Who decides about health-sector development? -- 9 Concluding remarks -- The role of factors beyond the economic mechanism -- The supporters and opponents of reform -- Evolutionary and "constructivist" development -- References -- Index.