Conclusions and Discussion

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the role of supplementary health insurance in different countries’ health care financing has received considerable attention from policy-makers and analysts. In an increasing number of OECD countries, health care reforms have been proposed in the direction of increasing the role of supplementary health insurance markets in the financing of health care. The major reasons behind the increasing reliance on supplementary health insurance markets are the alleged inefficiencies of collectively financed schemes, and the increasing constraints upon collective spending caused by the rising health care expenditures. The simplest government strategy to face the worldwide growth in health care expenditures, in the presence of constrained public resources, is to increase the share of individuals’ contributions to health care financing by an increasing reliance on supplementary health care financing schemes.