Selected country experiences
Swaziland
Swaziland is a small country in Southern Africa neighbouring the Republic of South Africa and Mozambique. About half of its 1 million inhabitants are classified as poor.
Presently, health care financing is mostly based on tax revenues and out-of-pocket spending amounts to 15% of total health expenditure. Total health care expenditure per capita is 164 USD (exchange rate). Approximately half of the health facilities are governmental. The rest constitutes of private-for-profit providers (27%) and mission/NGO providers (23%), the latter of which also receive some government funding. A small part of health care needs are also met through referral to South Africa. Prices charged by private providers are substantially higher than the fees at government facilities. The private-for-profit health care sector is well developed given that private health insurance is equally well established with an estimated 15% of formal sector workers affiliated to private health insurance companies. The largest private health insurance company with about 10,000 principal affiliates remunerates private providers on the basis of tariffs that are similar to those applied in the Republic of South Africa, but contribution rates are considerably high.