ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the main approaches to allocating health resources and the role that planners play in the contexts. It examines current and proposed health funding models for Australia. First, an overview of key theoretical models is presented, then recent developments and examples from different jurisdictions are provided. Resource allocation can be defined simply as the process of moving funds or resources from the funders of health care to the providers and consumers of health care. Cost-based funding (also called expenditure-based, input formulae or historical funding) has been the predominant form of health resource allocation from funders to public health providers. Planners working within an output-based funding system are working within a different context. In output-based models that provide funding based on demand (or utilisation) and not population need, the starting point for the health planner is utilisation and technical efficiency, rather than population need and allocative efficiency.
