Equity in health care financing: The case of Malaysia

Background: Equitable financing is a key objective of health care systems. Its importance is evidenced in policy documents, policy statements, the work of health economists and policy analysts. The conventional categorisations of finance sources for health care are taxation, social health insurance, private health insurance and out-of-pocket payments. There are nonetheless increasing variations in the finance sources used to fund health care. An understanding of the equity implications would help policy makers in achieving equitable financing. Objective: The primary purpose of this paper was to comprehensively assess the equity of health care financing in Malaysia, which represents a new country context for the quantitative techniques used. The paper evaluated each of the five financing sources (direct taxes, indirect taxes, contributions to Employee Provident Fund and Social Security Organization, private insurance and out-of-pocket payments) independently, and subsequently by combined the financing sources to evaluate the whole financing system. Methods: Cross-sectional analyses were performed on the Household Expenditure Survey Malaysia 1998/99, using Stata statistical software package. In order to assess inequality, progressivity of each finance sources and the whole financing system was measured by Kakwani's progressivity index. Results: Results showed that Malaysia's predominantly tax-financed system was slightly progressive with a Kakwani's progressivity index of 0.186. The net progressive effect was produced by four progressive finance sources (in the decreasing order of direct taxes, private insurance premiums, out-of-pocket payments, contributions to EPF and SOCSO) and a regressive finance source (indirect taxes). Conclusion: Malaysia's two tier health system, of a heavily subsidised public sector and a user charged private sector, has produced a progressive health financing system. The case of Malaysia exemplifies that policy makers can gain an in depth understanding of the equity impact, in order to help shape health financing strategies for the nation

CAN MARKETING SUPPORT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE EGOVERNMENT? ANALYSIS OF THE SINGLE POINT OF ACCESS PORTAL FOR ROMANIAN ELECTRONIC PUBLIC SERVICES

The advances in technology hold great potential for helping Romanian government respond to its challenges namely, better service delivery, better procurement, efficient working and better communication with citizens and businesses. While the European Commission develops the main strategies on eGovernment, every member state has the freedom to identify its own necessities and decide according to specific social, administrative and economic context. Designing, cost setting, choosing the best supply channels or communicating with involved actors, are all marketing instruments which, if used accordingly, can ensure modern and efficient public services. This paper presents an analysis of the degree of development of public services available at the "www.e-guvernare.ro" portal, the single point of access for specific Romanian electronic public services.electronic government, public services, marketing instrument, development, internet

E-public services: the case of e-taxation in Slovenia

The paper discuses e-taxation, one of the services offered by many governments in the world today. It argues that although this service can be developed well, according to the many benchmarking models in the world and become very familiar to members of the public , it can also be used poorly. The empirical results in the paper prove this. The case of Slovenia is presented, with a placement of Slovenia on the European map of e-government and a thorough description of the different electronic taxation services available to Slovenian citizens. Slovenia ranks above the EU average in online availability and in sophistication. The supply side of e-taxation services is then compared to the demand side and the results of different research studies and questionnaires are discussed and compared. Since e-taxation services, especially concerned with personal income tax, are still to be used more widely by Slovenian citizens, different existing approaches that have tried to correct the situation are analysed and new possibilities are suggested.e-government, e-taxation, citizens’ satisfaction, Slovenia

Information Outlook, April 2007

Volume 11, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1003/thumbnail.jp

Continuance intention of e-government service: A study of tax e-filing system in Malaysia

Governments in every country including Malaysia have spent huge amount of money for the development of electronic government services generally and specifically in tax e-filing system to ease the government services. Despite increases in investments and expenses in the development of e-government services and considering low level usage of this service compared to its availability is an important issue to be considered. At this vein, investigating the continuance intention of tax e-filing system is important, as the more citizens continuously use the tax e-filing system, the more operation and management cost could be reduced, to achieve target of usage by taxpayers in near future and for the success of this system. As such, aim of this research is to investigate the influence of trust, perceived system quality and perceived information quality on continuance intention of tax e-filing system among taxpayers in Malaysia. The results of this study were obtained from 425 taxpayers in Malaysia by using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) AMOS. Overall, most of the hypotheses developed were supported with the acceptable beta value between 2.857 to 12.453. The study found that perceived usefulness, trust, perceived system quality and satisfaction have significant positive influence on continuance intention of tax e-filing system, while, perceived information quality has insignificant influence on continuance intention of tax e-filing system. On other hand, trust, perceived system quality and confirmation have significant influence on satisfaction. Additionally, satisfaction was found mediates the relationship between trust and continuance intention, and perceived system quality and continuance intention. Hence, the finding of this study imply that full benefits and success of the e-filing system cannot be realized without continued usage as an e-government service can be considered success if a significant number of users move beyond the initial adoption and use the e-government services on a continual basis

Investigating the Governmental Accounting Reform of Greek National Health System (ESY): Some preliminary Evidence

During the last decades, several countries worldwide have introduced financial management reforms as an important part of the New Public Management (NPM) initiative at one or more levels of government sector, by replacing or transforming their traditional budgetary cash accounting systems towards business-like accrual accounting. Following the example of this upcoming managerial trend, the Greek government introduced in 1997 an accrual based accounting system (ABAS) and double-entry book-keeping method in all public hospitals. The hospital sector is one of the areas where NPM reforms have been introduced in search of higher efficiency in service production. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Our first goal is to provide an overview of the government sector reform initiatives in Greece and to present evidence regarding the adoption rate of the new accounting system by the Greek public health sector. The second goal of our research is to present the perceived usefulness of the accounting information provided by the proposed accounting reform as well as the implementation problems encountered in implementing ABAS. Our analysis is based on the results of an empirical survey that took place during 2008. For the purposes of this survey, a structured questionnaire was prepared and sent to the Finance Directors of 132 Greek public hospitals.Accrual Accounting, Public Sector Accounting, Public Hospitals, New Public Management.

The influence of e-tax user satisfaction on perception of service tax climate and overall satisfaction

Purpose: The purpose of our study is to explain that satisfaction in some features of e-tax system can increase the perception of service tax climate toward tax institution. In the era of modern technology, taxpayers assess tax institution services through the e-tax system, rather than face-to-face services. The e-tax system represents Director General of Taxes (DGT) services to taxpayers in the digital era. Design/methodology/approach: The method of data collection uses a survey in 2019 with a total sample of 94 taxpayers from the cities of Surabaya, Jakarta, Denpasar, and Semarang who have used the e-tax system at least three times. The analysis technique used SEM with WarpPLS software. The results showed that e-tax system satisfaction related to privacy, security and convenience of life affected the perception of service tax climate. Findings: We found that the system's security risk was the most important indicator of privacy-security, according to the taxpayers. We also found that indicator of "can be used anytime and anywhere" was significant to the taxpayers, especially to the respondent of Millennials and X generation in our study. We also found that privacy-security, job productivity, and convenience of life affect overall e-tax satisfaction. Practical implications: The research offers insights to the tax institution who should focus to enhance more rapid response in e-tax system so that the problems of taxpayers could be resolved effectively and efficiently. Originality/value: This is the first study that examines the influence of e-tax satisfaction, in terms of privacy-security, job productivity, and convenience of life, to the perception of service tax climate toward the tax institution.peer-reviewe

Service quality, citizen satisfaction, and loyalty with self-service delivery options to transforming e-government services

With the growing recognition of the citizen\u27s role in service demand and self-service delivery, there is an increased impetus on building citizen satisfaction and loyalty with government\u27s e-services. With the global trend in transforming government services through e-government, research on citizen interactions with web-based selfservice delivery options has been recently emerging in IS and e-government literatures. This study aims to contribute to post-adoption research by developing a model of citizen loyalty with government online self-service delivery options. We empirically test the proposed model through an analysis of 402 survey data collected from Saudi citizens/users of e-government transactional services. Multiple regression analysis results provide evidence that, as hypothesized, service quality and citizen satisfaction explain citizen loyalty with e-government services. We also find a moderating effect of citizen characteristics - age and education - on the strength of the model\u27s two hypothesized relationships between service quality and loyalty and between citizen satisfaction and loyalty

Service Quality, Citizen Satisfaction, and Loyalty with Self-Service Delivery Options: A Strategic Imperative for Transforming E-Government Services

With the growing recognition of the citizen’s role in service demand and self-service delivery, there is an increased impetus on building citizen satisfaction and loyalty with government’s e-services. With the global trend in transforming government services through e-government, research on citizen interactions with web-based self-service delivery options has been recently emerging in IS and e-government literatures. This study aims to contribute to post-adoption research by developing a model of citizen loyalty with government online self-service delivery options. We empirically test the proposed model through an analysis of 402 survey responses collected from Saudi citizens/users of e-government transactional services. Liner multiple regression analysis results find evidence that, as hypothesized, service quality and citizen satisfaction explain citizen loyalty with e-government services. They also find the moderating effect of citizen characteristics – age and education – on the strength of the model’s hypothesized relationships between service quality and loyalty and between citizen satisfaction and loyalty