Types of health care systems
There are various health care systems around the world. The majority of them can be divided into several groups depending on the source of funding. In the first group, the payment for medical assistance is supposed to be made by patients themselves, i.e. this means direct out-of-pocket funding. In the second group the operation of health care institutions is covered by general taxation, i.e. by paying taxes citizens support their country's health care systems. The third group uses social health insurance systems that are usually operated by government programs. Social health insurance systems, for example in the USA are based on collection of funds from individual citizen, employers and the government (sale of medical insurance policies).
In almost every country with a government-operated health care system there is a supplementary private health care system for those who can afford paying for medical assistance out of pocket. Sometimes such arrangement is called a two-tier health care system. As a rule, private hospitals exist for small groups of wealthy people in a generally poor country.
A recent study has shown that the quality of health insurance systems around the world is not an immediate result of the method of their financing, i.e. there is no immediate relationship between them and all health care systems, whether funded by the state or by the citizen themselves, can be equally efficient in providing quality medical care to the population.