Les politiques de santé en Europe : une vue d’ensemble

Abstract

Inspired by the ideas of Beveridge or Bismarck, health policies in Europe are quite diverse even though common ideas on ‘solidarity’ and the ‘right to health’ in a welfare state underlie them. Although not all these countries experienced the same need for regulations in the early 1980s, they have all developed regulatory policies for controlling the health sector’s growth. With variable methods depending on its public health system, each of these lands is trying to cope with the inflationary tendencies of the usual way of doing business. They are acting on the supply of health care by introducing market or quasi market mechanisms. They are trying to allocate funds so as to balance efficiency and fairness in public health expenditures. And they must take into account the growing concern for health in a new epidemic context. All reforms emphasize decentralization, seek to involve health-care users, assign the state new roles and, thus, modify the rules of the game in this sector. This trend toward reform should not, however, lead us to imagine that the convergence of health policies at the European level will be simple, since each reform represents a specific solution that has arisen out of the particular member-state’s history.