Thinking of introducing social health insurance? Ten questions

Overview

Social health insurance (SHI) is one of the possible  organisational  mechanisms for raising and pooling funds to finance health services, along with  tax-financing, private  health insurance, community  insurance, and others.i  Typically  in  the more  mature  European SHI systems, working people and their employers, as well  as the self-employed,  pay  contributions that cover a package of services  available to the  insurees and their dependents.  In  most  cases they  are obliged to  make these contributions  by law.  Many  governments also  pay subsidies  into these systems in order to ensure or improve their financial sustainability.  

This report is part of a series, The World Health Report 2010 Background Papers, which were written to inform the process of developing the key messages of the World Health Report 2010: Health systems financing: The path to universal coverage.