Comparisons of health expenditure in 3 Pacific Island Countries using National Health Accounts.

National Health Accounts (NHA) is an important monitoring tool for health policy and health systems strengthening. A pilot project amongst three Pacific Island Countries (PICs) to assist in developing their NHAs, allowed these countries to identify their sources of health funds, the health providers on which these funds are spent, and the types of health goods and services provided. In this paper we report some of the findings from the NHA exercises in FSM, Fiji and Vanuatu.

The Australian health policy changes of 1999 and 2000: an evaluation.

This article evaluates three measures introduced by the Australian Federal Government in 1999 and 2000 that were designed to encourage private health insurance and relieve financial pressure on the public healthcare sector. These policy changes were (i) a 30% premium rebate, (ii) health insurers offering lifetime enrolment on existing terms and the future relaxation of premium regulation by permitting premiums to increase with age, and (iii) a mandate for insurers to offer complementary coverage for bridging the gap between actual hospital billings and benefits paid. These measures were first evaluated in terms of expected benefits and costs at the individual level.

The decline in 'free' general practitioner care in Australia: reasons and repercussions.

The Australian public insurer, Medicare, allows general practitioners (GPs) to bulk bill patients, or accept the government rebate as full payment for their services. The percentage of GP consultations bulk billed, however has declined from 78.6% in June 2000 to 65.

Economic stability and health status: evidence from East Asia before and after the 1990s economic crisis.

The East Asian economies of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand suffered declines in their economic growth rates in 1997. The Indonesian and Thai government followed the World Bank prescription for adjustment, which included a cut-back in government spending at a time when there were significant job losses. Malaysia chose its own path to adjustment.

Unit root properties of OECD health care expenditure and GDP data.

This note reconsiders the unit root properties of health care expenditure (HCE) and gross domestic product (GDP) for OECD countries. The time-series properties of this data set has been much discussed in the literature with contrasting results from the application of a range of test procedures. We use a recently developed test to examine the relationship between the two variables.