Delivery systems

Delivery systems
Medicine is practiced within the medical system, which is a legal, credentialing and financing framework, established by a particular culture or government. The characteristics of a health care system have significant effect on the way medical care is delivered.
Most industrialized countries and many developing countries deliver health care though a system of universal health care which guarantees health care for all through a system of compulsory private or co-operative health insurance funds or via government backed social insurance. This insurance, (in effect, a form of taxation) ensures the entire population has access to medical care on the basis of need rather than ability to pay. The delivery systems may be provided by private medical practices or by state owned hospitals and clinics, or by charities.