Health Care Systems in Sweden, France and Italy A comparsion of three European countries

Abstract

This thesis describes three European countries with different types of health care systems, one Beveridge type system, Sweden, one Bismarck type system, France and one system that changed from being a Bismarck system to a Beveridge system in the end of the 1970’s, Italy. The purpose is to, though the comparison of statistics and literature see how the government decisions about the health care system and the state of the health care system is affecting the health outcomes in each country. There are characteristics that are specific to either the Beveridge or Bismarck systems and France and Sweden display the characteristics of their respective system as a general rule. Italy cannot be clearly placed in one category only through the comparison of statistics, the characteristics are mixed and display both good and bad parts typical for both Beveridge and Bismarck.