The Impact of Health Financing on Health Systems’ Performance: An Assessment for European Union and Candidate Countries

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to compare the performance of European Union (EU) members’ and candidate countries’ health systems. In this context, two-step analysis method was used in the study. In the first stage, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was conducted in order to determine the health care performance of the countries, while the second stage analysis attempts to determine whether the varying methods employed by the countries to finance their health systems has a statistically significant effect on the DEA scores. In the utilized Tobit regression model, the transformed DEA score was taken as the dependent variable, and the financing model adopted by the countries to finance health systems was taken as the independent variable. According to the results, the financing method shows a statistically significant effect on the efficiency of the health systems. Specifically, adopting the Beveridge Model has a statistically significant positive impact on health system efficiency.