ИСТИНА

Problems of health care financing are at the forefront of modern health care systems development for many well-documented reasons. The limits of public funds that can be mobilized and allocated to health care in modern capitalist society give rise to the problem of how to find resources to cover raising health care needs of populations and how to use the available funds more effectively. One way is to increase the share of private finance. However, this is likely to increase inequality of access to health care. The problem in health care financing manifests in members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in a specific way. Determined by both the common pre-transitional history of health systems development and paths of transition that each country chose, the common trend is less state participation and increased private spending. The paper analyses the existing public-private mix in health finance in selected CIS members including introduction of fee for services in state health services. Taking into account the relatively low level of public health expenditures coupled with high inequality, it is suggested that low-income people in the countries in question are likely to experience problems in receiving medical treatment. This situation provides a new role for governments to control not only public but also private health expenditures as well in the course of public sector reforms with the view of securing people's access to health care.