Abstract
Healthcare in European countries is provided through different systems run at national levels. The aim of the article is to evaluate selected health care indicators in EU countries, while accentuating similarities and differences between the EU countries in the context of health care systems. Applying the method of multivariate analysis, the selected health care indicators (from the areas of financing, service provision, health status) are evaluated on a set of 27 EU countries in the period 2013-2018. Factor analysis was applied to generate two factors (i.e. expenditures and satisfaction with health care, health status and bed availability in hospitals) from the original indicators of health care. As a next step, hierarchical cluster analysis was utilised to divide the EU countries into six clusters by similarity of the health care factors. The results of the factor analysis demonstrate marked differences between the countries regarding the evaluated health care factors. A higher (lower) level of socio-economic development is the aspect of better (worse) results of health care in the majority of the countries evaluated. However, according to the evaluated health care factors, clusters of similar countries used different systems of health care by type and source of financing. The findings thus demonstrate both similar and different approaches towards the provision of health care and funding health care systems in EU countries.
Highlights
Health care systems in all countries continue to evolve in response to changing demographic factors, simultaneously providing more information about health and health services and greater access to it (OECD, Eurostat and WHO, 2017, p. 20)
A precondition for universal health care is to create a system of protection that provides the highest possible level of health (Abiiro and De Allegri, 2015)
The selected health care indicators are evaluated in the 27 EU countries in the period 2013-2018 by use of the methods of multidimensional analysis – factor and hierarchical cluster analysis
Summary
Health care systems in all countries continue to evolve in response to changing demographic factors, simultaneously providing more information about health and health services and greater access to it (OECD, Eurostat and WHO, 2017, p. 20). A precondition for universal health care is to create a system of protection that provides the highest possible level of health (Abiiro and De Allegri, 2015). This system involves three dimensions: who is covered, what services are covered, and how much of the cost is covered (WHO, 2010; Reibling, 2010; Butticè, 2019). Health care systems are based on a mixture of funding by the public and the private sector. Financing more than 70% of expenditures on health care in two thirds of the EU member states, the public sector plays a substantial role in funding health care services (Łakomy-Zinowik and Horvathova, 2016; Fujii, 2018; Ciasullo et al, 2020). Taxation revenue is in many countries supplemented by specific charges or private payments for services which do not fall under the public system (Bentes et al, 2004)
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