This public lecture is now available as: MP3 (please listen to the file below in three parts).
In most European Union (EU) member countries with a competitive health insurance market, such as Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, governments or employers have been taking actions to increase solidarity, resulting in a reduction of the level of competition. Restriction of competition may reduce efficiency. EU countries are therefore looking for ways to combine competition and solidarity. This presentation will address the following questions: What is the best regulatory instrument that governments can implement to guarantee an ‘acceptable level of solidarity’ in competitive markets for basic health insurance? Are the regulatory tools most commonly implemented in different countries legally suitable and in conformity with the European Community (EC) legal framework? The presentation offers an analysis of four regulatory tools aimed at guaranteeing solidarity in competitive markets for basic health insurance. It also addresses the conformity of these regulatory instruments with existing EC law and jurisprudence, and policy implications for EU countries.
Dr Francesco Paolucci is Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH) at the Australian National University (ANU), and Adjunct Lecturer at the Institute of Health Policy and Management (iBMG) at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). He has held academic appointments at the University of Bologna, the Management Centre Innsbruck, the University of Oslo, Complutense University in Madrid, and iBMG. Dr Paolucci recently published Health Care Financing and Insurance: Options for Design (Springer, 2011), and authored several articles in academic journals on his research interests, which include health insurance, regulated competition, risk equalisation and risk selection, international comparison of health care systems, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, taxation and public economics, and competition law and economics. He is a member of scientific committee of the International Health Economics Association.
To view the flyer for this event please see: Competition and Solidarity in European Health Insurance Markets
