Can user charges make health care more efficient?

Footnotes

• Analysis, doi:10.1136/bmj.c2115

• Contributors and sources: ST, TF, and EM have recently written an overview of healthcare financing in the European Union. ST and EM have extensive experience of European health systems through their involvement with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. ST, TF, and EM devised the article. ST wrote the first draft. TF and EM contributed to subsequent drafts. All have read and agreed the final version. ST is the guarantor.

• Competing interests: All authors have completed the unified competing interest form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisation that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

• Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.