title: Appraising the financial reform in Bulgarian public health care sector: the Health Insurance Act of 1998.
abstract: The public health care services in Bulgaria were deteriorating, especially during the decade of transitional process. The method of health care finance was a major reason for the poor performance of the Bulgarian public health care sector. Bulgarian policy-makers decided that an insurance-based financial mechanism could help to rescue the failing public health care services. This paper explores the social benefits and the feasibility of the insurance-based finance in the Bulgarian public health care sector. The discussion in the paper implies that, in the current conditions of economic recession, the insurance-based health care finance can not be socially beneficial for Bulgaria. Moreover, the insurance implementation seams to be unfeasible due to a lack of sufficient financial resources.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Organisation, Faculty of Health Sciences, Policy and Economics, University of Maastricht, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands. m.pavlova@beoz.unimaas.nl
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pavlova
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Groot
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: van Merode
mesh_terms: D002031:Bulgaria; D003284:Contract Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000458:organization & administration; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D017059:Models, Econometric; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000191:economics*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D017150:Public Sector / Q000191:economics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence