Regional inequalities in the Hungarian health system

Abstract

The starting point of this paper which studies regional inequalities is the fact that public health is embedded in the socio-economic environment. Thus present inequalities in the Hungarian public health system are an element of the intertwined crisis in the economic and political spheres. The trend in the life expectancy of the Hungarian population deviates away from that in advanced Western countries and is accompanied by increasing social and regional differences in mortality. This phenomenon can be interpreted as a ‘social cost’ of post-1945 socio-economic development. This paper explores inequalities in the structure and mechanisms of the health system and the effects of the health system upon inequalities outside health care. The aim is to show that overcentralized health care administration and the rigid, overcentralized regional-functional structure of services constitute part of the inequalities of health care interpreted in a broad sense. These phenomena express the unequal power position of certain groups, spheres of society, or certain actors in health care in terms of command over resources. The system of political institutions evolved by state socialism in the early 1950s is the root cause of inequalities in the health care system.