Foreword

Abstract

The invited editors introduce the special issue of Revista de Análisis Económico on health care financing and delivery, which brings together the papers presented at the International Conference on Health Financing and Delivery held in Buenos Aires on 11 and 12 November 1996. The foreword frames health care reform in the region against the crisis of social health insurance systems: falling revenue driven by informality, inflation and evasion, and rising costs driven by demographic change, the dominance of curative over preventive care, and the inefficiencies inherent in their organisational model. On that diagnosis it identifies the features common to these reform processes —the State as policy-maker and regulator, the separation of financing from provision, competition among insurers and providers, and demand-side rather than supply-side subsidies— and reviews the papers in the issue, which address the role of the State in health care, structured pluralism in Colombia, private health insurance in Chile, basic health care packages, hospital financing in Argentina, and the determinants of demand for health care in Peru and Chile.