Health insurance can take two forms:
or it is simply a financial insurance: the individual is insured for a risk (accident, illness) and care (compensation of practitioners, and cost of drugs, prosthetics, orthotics …) are reimbursed according to the scale;
either the insurer is a network of care: he contacted practitioners, suppliers … Insurance buys a subscription to this kind of care network and resells to the user;
in its most extreme form, the insured has no choice of his physician, at least if he wants to take advantage of free health care or reimbursement.
There may be a coexistence of these two models.
Health insurance can be a purely state organization (public), this can be only private insurers or we can have a mixed system: the user has a public insurance is private insurance with a company or mutual insurance (called “complementary health” in France) to complete the refund or provides access to a network of complementary care.
There is evidence that countries that have adopted a purely private and competitive are those for which the expenses are higher. Thus, while developed countries spend on average 10% of GDP in their health care system in the United States spend 14% and Switzerland 13%. However, in a system of competing insurance, policyholders choose the level of spending they want from the level of health coverage they want. The level of expenditure in a system in competition thus reveals the desired level of spending by consumers. In a public system, the government sets the level of spending and rationing the use of health services for limited (eg, doctor in France). The comparison of spending levels between public systems and competing systems is biased because it is not comparable systems in their use.
or it is simply a financial insurance: the individual is insured for a risk (accident, illness) and care (compensation of practitioners, and cost of drugs, prosthetics, orthotics …) are reimbursed according to the scale;
either the insurer is a network of care: he contacted practitioners, suppliers … Insurance buys a subscription to this kind of care network and resells to the user;
in its most extreme form, the insured has no choice of his physician, at least if he wants to take advantage of free health care or reimbursement.
There may be a coexistence of these two models.
Health insurance can be a purely state organization (public), this can be only private insurers or we can have a mixed system: the user has a public insurance is private insurance with a company or mutual insurance (called “complementary health” in France) to complete the refund or provides access to a network of complementary care.
There is evidence that countries that have adopted a purely private and competitive are those for which the expenses are higher. Thus, while developed countries spend on average 10% of GDP in their health care system in the United States spend 14% and Switzerland 13%. However, in a system of competing insurance, policyholders choose the level of spending they want from the level of health coverage they want. The level of expenditure in a system in competition thus reveals the desired level of spending by consumers. In a public system, the government sets the level of spending and rationing the use of health services for limited (eg, doctor in France). The comparison of spending levels between public systems and competing systems is biased because it is not comparable systems in their use.