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Healthcare Systems & Services


Health International


Issue 6

Healthcare systems have been undergoing significant change during recent years—new technology, new drugs, and more skilled people have been driving improvements in healthcare outcomes. Unfortunately, this trend has also resulted in significant cost increases. In 2004, healthcare spending was between 8.5 percent and 14.6 percent of GDP in 14 OECD countries. In most cases, this figure is expected to continue its climb.


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Articles

Facts and figures: What role does private insurance play in meeting the challenge of spiraling health costs?

Despite globalization in other industries, convergence in healthcare systems and financing remains limited, and significant differences exist in how each OECD country finances healthcare. One trend does hold across all these countries, however: Healthcare is becoming more and more expensive, and an increasing share of these costs comes directly from the consumer’s own pocket.

Universal principles for healthcare reform

Healthcare systems around the world struggle to reconcile three competing objectives: equitable access, high quality, and low cost. A healthcare system’s fundamental problems can be addressed if the decision makers recognize the interlocking nature of its elements.

Big solutions for big problems?

Healthcare financing is a much debated topic and a headache for everyone working in the industry. The reason is obvious: with spiraling costs and apparently no limits to demand, most countries fear that their systems will face serious troubles or even collapse within 20 to 30 years if solutions are not found.

"A new label on an old system"

Germany's federal government has enacted healthcare reform. The objective: to get increasing costs under control and secure long-term financing for the German healthcare system. Health International asked Dr. Helmut Platzer, board chairman of AOK Bavaria, Germany's third-largest statutory health insurer, what he thinks of the new legislation.

Beyond the comfort zone

Innovation matters, even in health insurance. That's the key message emerging in markets across the globe as changing demographics, rising healthcare costs, and evolving regulatory environments open up new opportunities for healthcare payors—both public and private—beyond the industry's traditional scope.

"First you have to accept that there is a problem"

Val Gooding, head of BUPA, Britain's largest private health insurer, shares her views on the sustainability of European healthcare systems, productivity gains, the future of the NHS, and the key success factors for leading payors in five years.

The best that limited money can buy

Growing demand for healthcare continues to drive up already high activity and spending. Managing demand at various levels is thus becoming increasingly imperative to optimize treatment outcomes within cash-limited systems.

"Health is an emotional business"

Reinsurers, such as Munich Re, have long since moved away from the sole focus of assuming risks from primary insurers. In an interview with Health International, Peter Choueiri, head of Munich Re's health division, describes how his company is developing solutions along the entire value chain for the health market.

Meeting unmet needs—long-term care

Most people would like to live to a ripe old age. What they often don't like to think about is old age itself. Even less pleasant is considering the need for long-term care in their latter years. But insurance companies could do well to think about precisely this—especially since people don't want to themselves.

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