Chapter One
Challenges for health
care in Western
societies
Richard Normann
'We have to change in order to stay the same'
Could it be that public health care systems in Europe are
digging their own graves by not reinterpreting their identity
and design sufficiently in a new situation and by too single-handedly
sticking to principles that served in the past but will
now cause them to lose control?
Health care is regarded as a central part of welfare systems.
In Europe, this has resulted in a high degree of tax financing,
a high degree of public ownership of production resources and
in political responsibility for welfare. The European systems
tend to be essentially monolithic while the US system is fragmented,
in spite of efforts to introduce 'managed care'. ... read full excerpt from People as Care Catalysts: From Being Patient to Becoming Healthy ebook
