ZDRAVSTVENI PRIVATIZACIJSKI PENDULUM
THE HEALTH PRIVATIZATION PENDULUM

Summary/Abstract: The European model of competitiveness in health protection implies private initiative and private ownership on all levels of the health system, but under the condition of achieving a balance among the elements of equity, efficiency and accessibility of the health protection system. The balancing of these three principles presents a safe barrier against the uncontrolled growth of costs, medicalization and hypertechnologization of the treatment process and ethically unfounded exclusion of large groups of the population from the protection system. In countries in which competitiveness is particularly expressed (e.g. in the USA), it produces excellent resuits in clinical medicine. However, if professional, individual and institutional competition is not followed by a greater scope of insurance, then the population's state of health, in spite of high investment (much higher than in other industrially developed countries of the world), can result in a low level of health standard compared to the level of investment. The countries of the CCEE approached privatization with the presupposition that a privatizational "big bang" was possible as the only path towards market economy.

• Details
• Contents