Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Europe begins trek toward consumer-driven health care
["Too successful: the hospitals forced to introduce minimum waiting times," The Daily Telegraph, 7 August 2006.
Helen Disney, "Curing European Health Care," Wall Street Journal, 9 August 2006.]
Right on the heels of news that Britain is warning against "over-performing" by treating patients too quickly and imposing minimum waiting times for medical care, Helen Disney reports that changes are afoot throughout Europe to move away from state-directed healthcare:
A combination of demographic changes, increased consumer demand, rising medical costs and the resulting bankrupt welfare systems makes further market-oriented reform of European health systems highly likely.
In fact, many countries are already introducing steps that would have been heretical a few years ago. Some examples:
- In Slovakia, health insurers and providers have been given for-profit status to spur competition, rather than rely on a single state provider; these changes have helped the annual health-system deficit by cutting costs and increasing investment.
- In Sweden, with free-market forces at play, nurse pay has shot up, outstripping those in the rest of Sweden's health-care sector by 50 percent; almost all union organizations in the Swedish health-care sector now support reform.
- Britain has allowed contracting with private-sector vendors to provide set numbers of standard elective surgeries; this keeps prices down and allows patients to be treated more quickly.
- The U.K. government has endorsed a set of policies known as "Patient Choice," which allow patients to choose their own hospitals and gives them more control over when and where they are seen by a doctor.
[John McClaughry, "Patient Power - A Health Care Reform Agenda for Kansas," The Flint Hills Center, May 2004.
Richard Warner, "How Would You Like Your Medicine?," The Flint Hills Center, 24 July 1999.]
Helen Disney, "Curing European Health Care," Wall Street Journal, 9 August 2006.]
Right on the heels of news that Britain is warning against "over-performing" by treating patients too quickly and imposing minimum waiting times for medical care, Helen Disney reports that changes are afoot throughout Europe to move away from state-directed healthcare:
A combination of demographic changes, increased consumer demand, rising medical costs and the resulting bankrupt welfare systems makes further market-oriented reform of European health systems highly likely.
In fact, many countries are already introducing steps that would have been heretical a few years ago. Some examples:
- In Slovakia, health insurers and providers have been given for-profit status to spur competition, rather than rely on a single state provider; these changes have helped the annual health-system deficit by cutting costs and increasing investment.
- In Sweden, with free-market forces at play, nurse pay has shot up, outstripping those in the rest of Sweden's health-care sector by 50 percent; almost all union organizations in the Swedish health-care sector now support reform.
- Britain has allowed contracting with private-sector vendors to provide set numbers of standard elective surgeries; this keeps prices down and allows patients to be treated more quickly.
- The U.K. government has endorsed a set of policies known as "Patient Choice," which allow patients to choose their own hospitals and gives them more control over when and where they are seen by a doctor.
[John McClaughry, "Patient Power - A Health Care Reform Agenda for Kansas," The Flint Hills Center, May 2004.
Richard Warner, "How Would You Like Your Medicine?," The Flint Hills Center, 24 July 1999.]
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