Health Care in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland - the medium term fiscal aspects

Introduction

The paper provides perspective of recent developments in health care reforms in three fast-reforming transition economies: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The two former countries have been implementing reforms since early 1990s, while Poland started its reform on January 1, 1999 only. But the reforms are not over: in all three countries further changes are envisaged. The objective of this paper is to assess the current situation from a fiscal perspective. This, of course, is not the only criterion, but still vital enough to deserve careful analysis.

This paper was prepared for the research project No. P 96-6089-R (ACE PHARE Programme 1996) on "The Medium and Long-term Perspectives of Fiscal Adjustment of Selected Central European Countries".