1 - Why private health insurance? -- 2 - Private finance publicly subsidized: the case of Australian health insurance -- 3 - Private health insurance in Brazil, Egypt and India -- 4 - Private health insurance in Canada -- 5 - Regulating private health insurance: France’s attempt at getting it all -- 6 - Statutory and private health insurance in Germany and Chile: two stories of coexistence and conflict -- 7 - Uncovering the complex role of private health insurance in Ireland -- 8 - Integrating public and private insurance in the Israeli health system: an attempt to reconcile conflicting values -- 9 - Private health insurance in Japan, Republic of Korea and Taiwan, China -- 10 - The role of private health insurance in financing health care in Kenya -- 11 - Private health insurance in the Netherlands -- 12 - The challenges of pursuing private health insurance in low- and middle-income countries: lessons from South Africa -- 13 - Undermining risk pooling by individualizing benefits: the use of medical savings accounts in South Africa -- 14 - Consumer-driven health insurance in Switzerland, where politics is governed by federalism and direct democracy -- 15 - Regression to the increasingly mean? Private health insurance in the United States of America -- 16 - Health savings accounts in the United States of America