1. Health Care Systems – The Four Basic Models
Each country devises its own set of arrangements for meeting the three basic goals of a health care system: keeping people healthy, treating the sick, and protecting families against financial ruin from medical bills. There are four basic systems:
-The Beveridge Model: In this system, health care is provided and financed by the government throughtax payments. Many, hospitals and clinics are owned by the government. These systems tend to have low costs per capita, because the government, as the sole payer, controls what doctors can do and what they can charge. Great Britain, Spain, most of Scandinavia, New Zealand and Hong Kong are the countries using the Beveridge plan.
-The Bismarck Model: This system of providing health care uses aninsurance system, the insurers are usually financed jointly by employers and employees through payroll deduction. This model plans have to cover everybody, and they don’t make a profit. Doctors and hospitals tend to be private in Bismarck countries. this system is found in Germany, and France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, and, to a degree, in Latin America.
-The National HealthInsurance Model: This system has elements of both Beveridge and Bismarck. It uses private-sector providers, but payment comes from a government-run insurance program that every citizen pays into. The classic NHI system is found in Canada, Taiwan and also South Korea.
-The Out-of-Pocket Model: This model is found in the poor countries who can’t establish a health care systems. People who have nohealth insurance, the access to a doctor is available if they can pay the bill out-of-pocket at the time of treatment or if they’re sick enough to be admitted to the emergency ward at the public hospital.

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United Kingdom: The British system is « socialized medicine » because the government both provides and pays for health care. Britons pay taxes forhealth care, and the government-run National Health Service (NHS) distributes those funds to health care providers.
Japan: uses a « social insurance » system in which all citizens are required to have health insurance. Those who can’t afford the premiums receive public assistance. Most health insurance is private; doctors and almost all hospitals are in the private sector.
Germany: like Japan,uses a social insurance model. But unlike the Japanese, Germans are free to buy their insurance from one of more than 200 private insurers. As in Japan, the poor receive public assistance to pay their premiums.
Taiwan: adopted a « National Health Insurance » model. Like Japan and Germany, all citizens must have insurance, but there is only one, government-run insurer. Working people pay premiumssplit with their employers; others pay flat rates with government help; and some groups, like the poor and veterans, are fully subsidized. The resulting system is similar to Canada’s and the U.S. Medicare program.
Switzerland: The Swiss system is social insurance like in Japan and Germany, 95 percent of the population already has voluntary insurance. All citizens are required to have coverage.3. Facts on health insurance coverage
Most Americans have health insurance through their employers. But, due to rising health insurance premiums, many small employers cannot afford to offer health benefits. As a result, nearly 46 million Americans, or 18 % of the population under the age of 65, were without health insurance in 2007.
The number of uninsured people increased because rapidlyrising health insurance premiums are the main reason cited by all small firms for not offering coverage. As a result, lack of insurance compromises the health of the uninsured because they receive less preventive care, are diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and tend to receive less therapeutic care and have higher mortality rates than insured individuals. Also, the US spends nearly $100…