ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the development of a Financing Scheme Portfolio Expert System (ES) which, for a certain scenario, proposes the best possible mix of schemes and prices to decision-makers. It describes the potential user group within government and agencies providing technical support and their potential willingness or resistance to use such an ES. The chapter focuses on two different decision-makers concerned with the development and implementation of health care financing schemes. Governments of developing nations are faced with increasing costs of health services at a time when public spending becomes more and more constrained. Central government spending in the health sector has been falling in many developing countries between 1972 and 1985. An ES could increase the awareness for a cost-based rather than an expenditure-based approach, show different schemes of cost recovery, and demonstrate their potential contribution to health care financing.
