EXPLAINING WAITING-TIME VARIATIONS FOR ELECTIVE SURGERY ACROSS OECD COUNTRIES

摘要

Waiting times for publicly-funded elective surgery are a major health policy concern in many OECD countries (like Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), but are not a concern in others (like Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, )apan, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the United States). This paper contains a comparative analysis of these two groups of countries. It is found that countries which do not report waiting times, spend on average more on health care, have higher capacity (measured in terms of acute care beds and doctors), and have adopted more frequently activity-based funding for hospitals and fee-for-service systems for doctors (as opposed to global budgets and salary). On the demand side, the two groups of countries do not differ markedly in need, as measured through the proportion of elderly in the total population or mortality rates, or in the degree of cost sharing (co-payments for surgery).