Elias Mossialos is Reader in Health Policy, Department of Social Policy and Co-Director of LSE Health and Social Care at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Research Director of the European Observatory on Health Care Systems. He has recently co-edited Health Care and Cost Containment in the European Union and Public Health Policies in the European Union.
Anna Dixon is a Research Officer of the European Observatory on Health Care Systems and a Research Associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has edited a number of reports on the health care systems of western European countries.
Josep Figueras is the head of the Secretariat and a Research Director of the European Observatory on Health Care Systems, and is Regional Adviser for the Health Systems Analysis at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. He was co-editor of Critical Challenges for Health Care Reform in Europe.
Joe Kutzin is currently working for the World Health Organization in Kyrgyzstan as a health policy advisor. He has over 15 years' experience as a health economist, working with WHO, the World Bank, and as a consultant. He has a Master's Degree in Development Economics from Boston University.

Notes on contributors
Series editors' preface
Foreword
Funding health care
an introduction
Financing health care
taxation and the alternatives
Social health insurance financing
Health financing reforms in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
Private health insurance and medical savings accounts
theory and experience
Voluntary health insurance in the European Union
User charges for health care
Informal health payments in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
issues, trends and policy implications
Lessons on the sustainability of health care funding from low- and middle- income countries
Funding long-term care
the public and private options
Strategic resource allocation and funding decisions
Funding health care in Europe
weighing up the options
References
Index.