Health system financing by social security.

The article reviews, through a historical perspective, the development world-wide in social security systems for financing health care, considers the various patterns of health care funded by such systems, and identifies a number of the strengths and alleged weaknesses of the health insurance concept especially in the developing world. Though a range of options exists for mobilizing additional resources to the health sector, the adoption of statutory health insurance stands out as the single most practical strategy for increasing expenditures in health systems--especially expenditures on organized patterns of delivering primary health care.