Health care policy in Poland and in selected European Union countries: Attempts at reducing fast increasing medical care costs

Abstract

The objective of the paper is the discussion of the health care systems in selected countries. The paper presents the four basic models of health service, i.e. the Bismarck’s model, the Beveridge’s model, the residual model and the Siemaszko’s model. In the following part, the paper presents information on the deficit in the health care service in Poland, as well as the defi­cit in selected European countries, that is in Germany, in the United Kingdom, in France, Italy or the Netherlands It has been emphasised that a battle is currently waged throughout Europe about reducing expenses for health care services without any radical limitation in the scope of the public health care benefits. The shortage of financial funds and ever increasing expenditures for medical care put in a difficult situation not only physicians, but also patients. The subject matter of the analysis is indication of the possibilities of reducing excessive costs of the public health care services, but without severe reducing of the scope of public health care benefits. It has been emphasised that real changes may occur from development of privatisation in the competitors. The summary presents expenditures for health care in the years 1999-2008 in selected European countries as % of GDP.