Appraising the financial reform in Bulgarian public health care sector: the health insurance act of 1998

The public health care services in Bulgaria were deteriorating, especially during the decade of transitional process. The method of health care financ e was a major reason for the poor performance of the Bulgarian public healt h care sector. Bulgarian policy-makers decided that an insurance-based fina ncial mechanism could help to rescue the failing public health care service s. This paper explores the social benefits and the feasibility of the insur ance-based finance in the Bulgarian public health care sector. The discussi on in the paper implies that. in the current conditions of economic recessi on, the insurance-based health care finance can not be socially beneficial for Bulgaria. Moreover, the insurance implementation seams to be infeasible due to a lack of sufficient financial resources. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.