> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>
> How can the allocation of public resources for health be made more
> pro-poor?
>
> Mark Pearson, 2001
> HSRC Health Systems Research Center, Institute for Health Sector
> Development (IHSD),
> DFID's Health Population Department, London, UK
>
> Available as PDf file [25p.] at:
> <http://www.healthsystemsrc.org/Pdfs/Res_alloc.pdf>
>
> ".....The way in which a country finances its health care can have a major
> bearing on the access to health services enjoyed by its poor. National
> health policies generally set out a strategic goal of ensuring equal
> access to essential health services for all, on the basis of need and
> irrespective of ability to pay or some variation on this theme.
>
> Health financing impacts on this goal in two ways
> * on the supply side by ensuring that essential services are adequately
> financed and delivered, and
> * on the demand side by reducing financial barriers to access and by
> making sure that funds are raised and services delivered in ways which are
> affordable to all.
>
> In a typical low income country, where only $3 - $5 of public funds per
> head is available for the health sector, such an ambitious goal is
> probably unrealistic no matter how well resources are allocated and used.
> In practice, there will often be significant inefficiency and inequity in
> both allocation and use of resources. This clearly raises the question as
> to whether, and how, financing policies could be made more pro-poor.
>
> Put simply health financing can be broken down into the following
> elements:
> * Funding: how revenues are raised - from general taxation, indirect
> taxation, social insurance, or out of pocket expenditure
> * Allocation: how these resources are allocated and used
> * Payment of providers: the way that providers are reimbursed for
> delivering services - through salary, fee for service, capitation,
> diagnostic related groups, global budgets etc.
>
>
> _____
>
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