INTRODUCTION The Democratic Republic of the Congo is today one of the poorest countries in the world; the health status of the population ranks among the worst in Sub-Saharan Africa. Public health services charge user fees and drug prices. Since 2008, north-eastern Congo is facing a guerrilla war. Malteser International is assisting with free health care for internally displaced persons as well...

Background There is a serious shortage of skilled nutrition professionals in West Africa. Investing in nutrition training is one of the strategies for strengthening the human resource base in nutrition. However, little is known about how nutrition training in the region is financed and the levels of tuition fees charged. The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive assessment about ...

Th is Perspective explains why implementation analysis of the cost control provisions within the Patient Protection and Aff ordable Care Act is not particularly useful. Th ese provisions are either relatively straightforward or, more commonly, so fl awed that successful implementation is highly unlikely. Th e analysis shows that eff ective and equitable cost control will require coordinating pa...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been shown to be sensitive in identifying ligamentous injury to the cervical spine. The major drawbacks to its routine use are cost and availability. The purpose of this study was to compare the cost of using MRI to rule out ligamentous injury of the cervical spine with the cost of immobilization in a cervical collar and outpatient follow-up. Neurologically ...

BACKGROUND In August 2009, China formally established the National Essential Medicines System (NEMS) and implemented this system in the government-funded primary care medical and health institutions. After nearly four years of practice, the system has already been generalized to the county-level public hospitals. This study aimed to examine the impact on the operation of the hospitals through i...

1 3 3 0 G S T R E E T N W , W A S H I N G T O N , D C 2 0 0 0 5 P H O N E : 2 0 2 3 4 7 5 2 7 0 , F A X : 2 0 2 3 4 7 5 2 7 4 W E B S I T E : W W W . K F F . O R G How Much Will Medicaid Physician Fees for Primary Care Rise in 2013? Evidence from a 2012 Survey of Medicaid Physician Fees Executive Summary Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), beginning in 2014, states will be able to expand Med...

The paper develops an integrated model of optimal nonlinear income taxation, public-goods provision and pricing in a large economy. With asymmetric information about labour productivities and publicgoods preferences, the multidimensional mechanism design problem becomes tractable by requiring renegotiation proofness of the final allocation of private goods and admission tickets for excludable p...