Healthcare financing is the biggest of all the money pits facing both the developed and emerging worlds in the 21st century. With the cost of healthcare rising, as new and more complex drugs treatments are discovered, and with populations in western countries aging, the problem of how healthcare is to be financed is an increasingly urgent one.
In developing countries, AIDS is not only a social cataclysm, but also produces impossible financing problems for poorly endowed governments. Worldwide, healthcare finance is a problem governments and peoples are struggling to solve.
In the following series of reports, UPI correspondents and analysts from around the world survey the state of healthcare finance, including the scientific and cultural factors that make healthcare finance such as a difficult problem.
1. "The Bear's Lair: Healthcare money chasm." There are many bad examples of bad healthcare finance systems around the world, and very few good ones. Nevertheless, looking at healthcare finance from an incentive oriented viewpoint provides some indicators about how to contain the problem. By MARTIN HUTCHINSON, UPI Business and Finance Editor. https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=13052002-045636-1774r
2. "Medical technology expected to drive costs." Advances in medical technology save lives and improve the life standards of millions, but they are increasingly expensive, and consumers demand the best medial care, without regard to cost. Choices must be made. By KATRINA WOZNICKI, UPI Science News.
https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=15052002-123059-8890r
3. "Old age continues to push boundaries." Medicine can keep people alive for longer about 2-3 years extra life expectancy per decade -- but the difficulty will be to keep the longer lived active far into old age. By KATRINA WOZNICKI, UPI Science News.
https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=15052002-020313-1663r
4. "China wrestles with healthcare." China has the typical healthcare financing problems of an emerging economy but has found a unique solution -- underground (unlicensed) healthcare centers, where simple healthcare is provided at affordable prices. But is the quality even adequate? By CHRISTIAN WADE, UPI Business Correspondent. https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=15052002-102204-4265r
5. "Singapore looks to healthcare changes." The Central Provident Fund, where Singaporeans save in advance for healthcare and retirement costs, is in many ways a model system. But even in Singapore, healthcare financing problems are escalating. By SONIA KOLESNIKOV, UPI Business Correspondent.
https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=07052002-113324-1956r
6. "Japan's healthcare burdens." Japan is facing first what other countries must face soon: the graying of its population, and consequent increase in demands on healthcare services. It has the most generous healthcare system in the world, but for how much longer? By SHIHOKO GOTO, UPI Senior Business Correspondent.
https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=14052002-120405-9746r
7. "Better get sick in Germany." The German healthcare system is modern, generous and efficient, if staggeringly bureaucratic. It is also increasingly becoming unaffordable. By SAM VAKNIN, UPI Senior Business Correspondent.
https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=10052002-022811-3907r
8. "Dying breed: Health care in Eastern Europe." In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, it's better to stay healthy. Healthcare systems are antiquated, corrupt and underfunded, and the problem is not going away. By SAM VAKNIN, UPI Senior Business Correspondent.
https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=09052002-121104-1004r
9. "Shock Therapy in Macedonian healthcare." In Macedonia, western aid agencies have attempted to modernize the existing specialist-based healthcare system and replace it with a US-style general practitioner-based system. The attempt hasn't worked, and has produced the worst of both worlds. By CHRISTOPHER DELISO, Special to UPI. https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=24052002-030615-8517r
10. "South Africa acknowledges AIDS." How does a nation account for its healthcare financing when it refuses to believe why 14 percent of its population, or 30 percent of its workforce, might die by the year 2010? By ZACHARY WALES, Special to UPI. https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=22052002-055035-8504r
11. "Brazil healthcare shines, falters." Health care in Brazil is very much the story of David taking on the Goliath of international drug companies, flaunting patent laws and saving or prolonging the lives of its citizens at risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and AIDS. By BRADLEY BROOKS, UPI Business Correspondent. https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=23052002-123036-3108r
12."Inside Mexico: health for a half." In Mexico, sophistication is not the problem. The challenge is to bring good basic care to more of the population over a vast country and one divided by a gulf between rich and poor. By IAN CAMPBELL, UPI Chief Economics Correspondent.
https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=23052002-111220-3060r
UPI offers this series of healthcare finance reports for your publication or organization to run with credit and attribution to United Press International, along with author's byline. For inquiries on UPI's healthcare package call Nancy Cohn (202) 669-6396.
