Health Financing Systems
What the chapter is about
This chapter introduces the topic of health financing. The goal of health financing systems is to maximise the quality and quantity of healthcare within the available resources. The chapter introduces the key functions of a health financing system: revenue raising, risk pooling, resource allocation and service provision. These topics are developed further in subsequent chapters. The chapter concludes by looking at public-private partnerships and their roles at a national and a global level.
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The case studies from this chapter are from:
- Canada
- China
- Japan
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- United Kingdom
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