Welfare, Choice, and Solidarity in Transition

Fülszöveg

This book offers health-sector reform recommendations for ten countries of
Eastern Europe. After discussing sector-specific characteristics, lessons of
international experience, and the main set of initial conditions, the authors
advocate reforms based on organized public financing for basic care, private
financingfor supplementary care, pluralistic delivery of services, and managed
competition. Policy-makers need to achieve a balance, both assuring social
solidarity through universal access to basic health services and expanding
individual choice and responsibility through voluntary supplemental insurance.
The authors also consider the problems that undermine effectiveness of market-
based competition in the health sector.
'To judge from its title, Janos Korriai and Karen Eggleston have written a book about health care
reform in Eastern Europe. In fact, they have done much more. Followingtheir own axiom of
transparency, they begin by setting out goals of health care... Tovább

Fülszöveg

This book offers health-sector reform recommendations for ten countries of
Eastern Europe. After discussing sector-specific characteristics, lessons of
international experience, and the main set of initial conditions, the authors
advocate reforms based on organized public financing for basic care, private
financingfor supplementary care, pluralistic delivery of services, and managed
competition. Policy-makers need to achieve a balance, both assuring social
solidarity through universal access to basic health services and expanding
individual choice and responsibility through voluntary supplemental insurance.
The authors also consider the problems that undermine effectiveness of market-
based competition in the health sector.
'To judge from its title, Janos Korriai and Karen Eggleston have written a book about health care
reform in Eastern Europe. In fact, they have done much more. Followingtheir own axiom of
transparency, they begin by setting out goals of health care and other social support systems in
a fresh way, and go on to apply the goals to the practical tasks of health care financing and
organization. In so doing, they make a large contribution to a small literature, a comparative
analytical treatment of many countries' health care systems together with advice for the
would-be reformer.'
Joseph P.Newhouse, John D.MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management,
Harvard University
'A book bringingtogethera lifelong student of socialism and a highly-trained health economist
was likely to produce a major disconnect or to provide intellectual fireworks through novel
ways of dissecting the issues and provocative insights into old problems. Lovers of fireworks
should read on.'
Nicholas Barr, Readerin Economics, London Schoolof Economicsand Political Science
JANOS KORNAI is Allie S. Freed Professor
of Economics at Harvard University and
Permanent Fellow at the Institute for
Advanced Study at the Collegium Budapest.
He has a long list of publications, including
more recently Highways and Byways:
Studies on Socialist Reform and
Postsocialist Transition (1995), Struggle and
Hope: Essays on Stabilization and Reform in
a Post-Socialist Economy (1997) and On
Health Care Reform (1998).
KAREN EGGLESTON teaches health
economics in the Department of
Economics at Tufts University and is a
Research Associate at the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University.
Her research interests include comparative
health policy, payment system incentives,
health sector reforms in China, and the
economics of contracts. Vissza