Discussion Question 2
1. Health financing systems distribute resources through revenue raising, pooling, and purchasing arrangements. Describe these healthcare financing functions, and give two examples of each for a healthcare system of your choice.
2. Knowledge of the characteristics of the various sources of revenue can help us understand the healthcare financing situation in a particular country. Direct taxes arc one source of revenue collected for health services. List and explain the other sources, and give specific country examples.
3. What are the three macroeconomic drivers of national health expenditures?
4. What are the primary healthcare delivery methods that countries have employed, and how do they attempt to influence the factors of production?
a. Which use demand-side tools?
b. Which use supply-side tools?
5. What role does a nation’s sociocultural foundation play in determining the delivery model and supply-and-demand mechanism used to influence health expenditures?
6. When are individuals likely to participate in voluntary insurance markets? Why?
7. Why do well-functioning insurance markets require the insured population to be risk averse?
8. How do payments to clinicians influence health expenditures?
a. What is the natural provider response in a fcc-for-service environment?
b. What is the natural provider response in a capitated, fixed payment, or diagnosis-related group environment?
c. How have payers attempted to mitigate that impact?
