Issues of health care financing in Russia

The paper analyses three key issues in the reform of public health care funding in the Russian Federation: the lack of funds to cover the state guarantees of free medical care to the population; the lack of coordination between different funding agencies; and the lack of improvements in the performance of the new agencies financing health care and medical insurance. The paper concludes that the issue of reconsidering the constitutional guarantees of free health care must be seriously addressed and that the responsibilities of public agencies, particularly regional authorities, and health insurance carriers must be clearly distinguished and coordinated. The paper gives several concrete recommendations on how the problems could be solved