Publicly funded Health
Insurance
With publicly funded health
insurance the good and the bad risks all receive coverage without regard to
their health status, which eliminates the problem of adverse selection and
amplifies the problem of moral hazard.

National Health
Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the "public face" of the
four publicly funded health care systems of the United Kingdom. The
organisations provide the majority of healthcare in the UK, from general
practitioners to Accident and Emergency Departments, long-term healthcare and
dentistry. They were founded in 1948 and have become an integral part of British
society, culture and everyday life: the NHS was once described by Nigel Lawson,
former Chancellor of the Exchequer, as 'the national religion'. Private health
care has continued parallel to the NHS, paid for largely by private insurance,
but it is used only by a small percentage of the population, and generally as a
top-up to NHS services.

Health
Insurance in the United States
Main article: Health care in
the United States
According to the latest United States Census Bureau
figures, approximately 85% of Americans have health insurance. Approximately 60%
obtain health insurance through their place of employment or as individuals, and
various government agencies provide health insurance to over 29% of
Americans.[2] In 2005, there were 41.2 million people in the U.S. (14.2 percent
of the population) who were without healthcare insurance for at least part of
that year.(ibid) For many people, however, this does not boil down to a simple
question of affordability. Part of this population might include young and
healthy individuals with low risk of serious illness who don't believe that
health insurance would be cost-effective. In fact, approximately one-third of
these 41.2 million live in households with an income over $50,000, with half of
these having an income of over $75,000.[3] Additionally, one third of these 41.2
million are eligible for public health insurance programs but have not signed up
for them.[4] People living in the western and southern United States are more
likely to be uninsured.[2]

Medicare
In the United States,
government-funded Medicare programs help to insure the elderly and end stage
renal disease patients. Some health care economists (Ewe Reinhardt of Princeton
and Stuart Butler among others) assert that (the third party payment feature)
these programs have had the unintended consequence of distorting the price of
medical procedures. As a result, the Health Care Financing Administration has
set up a list of procedures and corresponding prices under the Resource-Based
Relative Value Scale.

Starting in 2006, Medicare Part D provides a
program for the elderly to buy insurance for the purchase of prescription
drugs.

Medicare Advantage
Medicare Advantage expands the health
care options for Medicare beneficiaries. Medicare Advantange was born from the
Balanced Budget Act of 1997 in order to better control the rapid growth in
Medicare spending, as well as to provide Medicare beneficiaries more
choices.

Medicaid
While Medicaid was instituted for the very
poor, beginning in 1972, the number of individuals in the United States who
lacked any form of health insurance for any period during the year increased
each year, every year with the exceptions of the years 1999 and 2000.[citation
needed] It has been reported that the number of physicians accepting Medicaid
has decreased in recent years due to relatively high administrative costs and
low reimbursements. [5]

The shift to managed care in the
U.S.
Through the 1990s, managed care grew from about 25% of U.S.
employees to the vast majority.