Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Towards Universal Health Care in Emerging Economies pp 269–296Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Constraints on Universal Health Care in the Russian Federation: Inequality, Informality and the Failures of Mandatory Health Insurance Reforms

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Social Policy in a Development Context ((SPDC))

Abstract

Cook provides a comprehensive overview of Russia’s post-communist health care system, including the health crisis of the 1990s, and the recovery of health care financing and health indicators for the population from 2000. The chapter recognizes the broad coverage of Russia’s health care system and focuses on obstacles to universal and effective coverage, including socioeconomic and regional inequalities as well as informal payments for health services. Cook assesses the system’s accomplishments and limitations, as well as the multiple efforts at health care reform since 1990.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    In the 1980s less than one-half of 1 percent of the population had access to the elite system, while about half were served in the lowest-quality, rural district system (Davis 1988). Education and social status also played important roles in health care utilization (Rusinova and Brown 2003).

  2. 2.

    Potapchik et al. (2011), World Bank (2011a), UNDP (2010).

  3. 3.

    Feeley et al. (1999), Blam and Kovalev (2003, 2006), Cook (2014a).

Bibliography

  • Aarva, Paulina, Irina Ilchenko, Pavel Gorobets, and Anastasiya Rogacheva. 2009. Formal and informal payments in health care facilities in two Russian cities, Tyumen and Lipetsk. Health Policy and Planning 24: 395–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blam, Inna, and Sergey Kovalev. 2003. Commercialization of medical care and household behavior in transitional Russia. Draft paper prepared for RUIG/UNRISD project on Globalization, Inequality, and Health. Geneva: UNRISD.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2006. Spontaneous commercialization, inequality, and the contradictions of compulsory medical insurance in transitional Russia. Journal of International Development 18(3): 407–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buckley, Cynthia, Blair Ruble, and Erin Trouth Hofmann. 2008. Migration, homeland and belonging in Eurasia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buckley, Cynthia J., Erin Trouth Hofmann, and Yuka Minagawa. 2011. Does nativity matter? Correlates of immigrant health by generation in the Russian federation. Demographic Research 24(32): 801–824.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Budiansky, Vladimir. 2012. Short analysis of a market of medical tourism from Russia. http://moscow.doctor.ru. Accessed 19 July 2013

  • Cook, Linda, J. 2007. Postcommunist welfare states: Reform politics in Russia and Eastern Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. Russia’s welfare regime: The shift toward statism. In Gazing at welfare: Gender and agency in post-socialist countries, ed. Maija Jappinen, Meri Kulmala, and Aino Saarinen, 14–37. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, Linda J. 2014a. ‘Spontaneous Privatization’ and its political consequences in Russia’s postcommunist health sector. In The politics of non-state welfare, ed. Melani Cammett and Lauren McLean, 217–236. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014b. Medical care in migrant Moscow. Paper presented at Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, 25 June 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Christopher. 1988. The organization and performance of the contemporary soviet health care system. In State and welfare USA/USSR: Contemporary policy and practice, ed. Gail Lapidus and Guy Swanson, 95–142. Berkeley: University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2001. Russia’s compulsory medical insurance reform: Its impacts on health finance, performance of the medical system, and the health of the population. HLSP-DFID project on improving equity in health financing: Russia. Oxford University. Mimeo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feeley, G., I.M. Sheiman, and S.V. Shishkin. 1999. Health sector informal payments in Russia. http://doc2.bu.edu/RussianLegalHealthReform/ProjectDocuments/n650.111B6. Accessed 12 Nov 2012

  • Gilpin, Christopher, Pierpaolo de Colombani, Sayohat Hasanova, and Umrinisso Sirodjiddinova. 2011. Exploring TB-related knowledge, attitude, behavior, and practice among migrant workers in Tajikistan. Tuberculosis Research and Treatment 2011: Article ID 548617.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goskomstat. 2001, 2002. Sotsial’noe Polozhenie i uroven zhizni naseleniia Rossii (Social Conditions and Standard of Living of Russia’s Population), Statistical Handbook. Moscow: Goskomstat.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haggard, Stephan, and Robert R. Kaufman. 2008. Development, democracy, and welfare states: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heleniak, Timothy. 2008. An overview of migration in the post-soviet space. In Migration, homeland and belonging, ed. Cynthia J. Buckley and Blair A. Ruble with Erin Trouth Hofmann, 29–68. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, John. 2011. Drug abuse in Russia: An emerging threat. Problems of Post-Communism 58(1): 31–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lussier, Danielle N., and Marcy E. McCullaugh. 2009. Epidemic breakpoint: Confronting HIV/AIDS in Russia’s regions. Problems of Post-Communism 56(1): 35–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manning, Nick, and Nataliya Tikhonova. 2009. Health and health care in the new Russia. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). 2001. Social crisis in the Russian Federation. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pape, Ulla. 2014. The politics of HIV/AIDS in Russia. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popovich, L., E. Potapchik, S. Shishkin, E. Richardson, A. Vacroux, and B. Mathivet. 2011. Russian federation: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition 13(7): 1–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Potapchik, E.G., E.V. Selezneva, and S.V. Shishkin. 2011. Dostupnotst’ meditsinskoi pomoshchu dlia naselenia, (po materialam monitoring ekonomicheskikh protsessov v zdravookhranenii). Working Paper Series WP8. Moscow: Higher School of Economics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putin, Vladimir. 2005. Politika. Poslanie Federal’nomu Sobraniiu Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Rosskksiaia Gazeta, 86, 26 April 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Remington, Thomas. 2011. The politics of inequality in Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rosstat. 2009. Zdravookhranenie v Rossii (Healthcare in Russia), Statistical Compendium. Moscow: Rosstat.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusinova, Nina L., and Julie Brown. 2003. Social inequality and strategies for getting medical care in post-soviet Russia. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 7(1): 57–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shishkin, S.V. (ed.). 2006. Zdravookhranenie regionakh Rossiiskoi Federatsii: mekhanismy financirovaniia I upravleniia. Moscow: Nezavisimii institut sotsial’noi politiki.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shishkin, S.V., T.V. Bogatova, Y.G. Potapchik, V.A. Chernets, A.Y. Chirikova, and L.S. Shilova. 2003. Informal out-of-pocket payments for health care in Russia. Moscow: Moscow Public Science Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shishkin, S.V., A.Y. Burdyak, and E.V. Selezneva. 2008a. Razlichiia v dostupnosti meditsinskio pomoshchi dlia naseleniia Rossii. Spero 8: 135–158. http://spero.socpol.ru/docs/N8_2008-135-158.pdf. Accessed 10 Aug 2010.

  • Shishkin, S.V., N.V. Bondarenko, A. Ia. Burdiak, K.M. Kel’manzon, M.D. Krasil’nikova, L.D. Popovich, S.V. Svetlichnaia, E.V. Selezneva, I.M. Sheiman, and V.I. Shevskii. 2008b. Rossiiskoe Zdravookhraninie: Motivatsiia Vrachei i obshchestvennaia Dostupnost. Moscow: Nezavisimii institut sotsial’noi politiki.

    Google Scholar 

  • Starodubov, V.I., V.O. Fleck, and E.D. Dmitrieva. 2007. A complex assessment of healthcare financing in the Russian federation using a system of accounts, 2000–2006. Menedzher zdravookhraneniia 10 and 11: 4–11 and 5–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • TACIS (Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States). 1999. Public-private mix in the health care and health insurance system (current situation, problems, perspectives). Anthology of reports prepared by experts in TACIS Project No. EDRUS 9605. Moscow: TACIS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tikkanen, I. 2005. Sectors in healthcare tourism: The case of Kuopio region. In Tourism industry and education symposium, Jyvaskyla, Finland, 19–21 May 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tompson, William. 2007. Healthcare reform in Russia: Problems and prospects. Economics Department. Working Papers No. 538. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tragakes, E., and S. Lessof. 2003. Health care systems in transition: Russian federation. Copenhagen: European Observatory on Health Systems and Polities.

    Google Scholar 

  • Twigg, Judyth. 1998. Balancing state and market: Russia’s adoption of obligatory medical insurance. Europe-Asia Studies 50(4): 586.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. HIV/AIDS in Russia: Commitment, resources, momentum, challenges: Report of task force on HIV/AIDS. Washington, DC: CSIS.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2010. Millennium development goals in Russia: Looking into the future. National human development report in Russian Federation 2010. Moscow: UNDP Russia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vacroux, Alexandra. 2004. Regulation and corruption in transition: The case of the Russian pharmaceutical markets. In Building a trustworthy state in post-socialist transition, ed. Janos Kornai and Susan Rose-Ackerman, 146. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Formal and informal institutional change: The evolution of pharmaceutical regulation in Russia, 1991–2004. PhD Thesis, Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weine, Stevan, M. Bahromov, and A. Mirzoev. 2008. Unprotected Tajik male migrant workers in Moscow at risk for HIV/AIDS. Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 10: 461–468.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. 2005. Russian federation: Reducing poverty through growth and social policy reform. Report No. 28923-RU. Washington, DC: World Bank.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011a. Russian federation: Social expenditure and fiscal federalism in Russia. Report No. 54392-RU. Washington, DC: World Bank.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rhode Island, USA

    Linda J. Cook

Authors
  1. Linda J. Cook
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. UNRISD, Geneva, Switzerland

    Ilcheong Yi

Copyright information

© 2017 United Nations Research Institute for Social Development

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Cook, L.J. (2017). Constraints on Universal Health Care in the Russian Federation: Inequality, Informality and the Failures of Mandatory Health Insurance Reforms. In: Yi, I. (eds) Towards Universal Health Care in Emerging Economies. Social Policy in a Development Context. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53377-7_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53377-7_10

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53376-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53377-7

  • eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation