Privatization in European Healthcare; a comparative analysis in eight countries

After many decades of ever expanding state involvement in health care, there are various signs that suggest the advance of privatisation in European health care. This development could mark the beginning of a new episode in health care wherein the balance between public and private elements in health care will be fundamental restructured. The objective of this book is to provide an empirical and comparative analysis of privatisation in European health care. It offers an in-depth analysis on the public-private mix in eight European countries - Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom - and how that mix has been changing since the late eighties/ early nineties when many governments across Europe felt that their health care system needed fundamental reform and that the role of private elements had to be reinforced in order to improve the performance of their health care system. The analysis is complemented by a quantitative analysis of privatisation in health care finance in forty European political entities. This study understands privatisation as a broad phenomenon. Privatisation not only refers to the termination of state activity in health care but also encompasses changes in the institutional structure in which the state performs its health policy tasks. Attention is given to privatisation in health care funding, the provision of health care, health care management and administration as well as other areas. This book also discusses some hypotheses on factors that promote privatisation. In this respect it analyses the impact of neo-liberal ideas, the growth of economic wealth, and public failures upon privatisation. Other factors investigated concern the influence of the institutional obstacles to privatisation in health care. Privatisation has always remained a contested political topic. Readers of this book will find an excellent overview of recent trends in European health care with respect to privatisation. It is therefore an invaluable resource for politicians, policymakers, provider institutions, health insurers, patient groups and other stakeholders in health care.