Equity in the Finance and Delivery of Health Care An International Perspective - Commission of the European Communities Health Services Research Series

This volume presents the results of research which has been facilitated by funding from the European Comunity and it represents a significant contribution to knowledge about equity in the finance and delivery of health care in 10 countries. It compares the experience of nine European countries and the US using a consitent methodology, so as to draw out comparable results from 10 very different health care systems.;Such an approach facilitates not only a greater understanding of the performance of the health care systems of individual countries but also the identification of the lessons that can be learnt from international comparisons. In recent years there has developed a recoginition that many health and health care problems are similar across many countries and their solution can be usefully formed by the abandonment both of isolation and the belief that individual country problems are unique.;The content of this book aims to demonstrate that given to efficient research teams, research funding can produce both significant new knowledge of direct relevance to the reform of health care systems world-wide, and also, collaborate mutually formative work between Europeans and others living outside a united Eruope.