Saltman on solidarity
نویسندگان
چکیده
Richard Saltman suggests that solidarity, a cherished notion at the heart of West European health care systems is being reconsidered in the light of today's austere economic conditions. Solidarity, he argues, has always been a flexible moral guideline, one that allows for policy responses, such as limitations on health benefits or increased out of pocket payments, that challenging fiscal conditions are said to demand. Here we consider what the basic elements in solidarity - universality, redistribution, and uniformity-- mean in health as compared to other social policy realms such as pensions. Traditionally, the commitment to solidarity said little about the contents of services, but the latter is perhaps subject to increasing scrutiny under the health policy microscope. Saltman is right to emphasize the conceptual and cross-national flexibility of solidarity, but the notion retains a solid and durable core that continues to give valuable direction to policymakers in search of acceptable strategies and structures for decision making.
منابع مشابه
Health sector solidarity: a core European value but with broadly varying content
Although the concept of solidarity sits at the center of many European health sector debates, the specific groups eligible for coverage, the financing arrangements, and the range of services and benefits that, together, compose the operational content of solidarity have all changed considerably over time. In prior economic periods, solidarity covered considerably fewer services or groups of the...
متن کاملProvider Governance; A Basic Blackbox Seldom Looked at Properly: A Response to Recent Commentaries
*Correspondence to: Richard B. Saltman, Email: [email protected] Copyright: © 2016 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the origin...
متن کاملA reflection on Richard B. Saltman 'Structural patterns in Swedish health policy'.
Health Economics, Policy and Law / Volume 10 / Issue 02 / April 2015, pp 217 219 DOI: 10.1017/S1744133114000322, Published online: 31 July 2014 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1744133114000322 How to cite this article: Carl H. Lyttkens (2015). A reection on Richard B. Saltman ‘Structural patterns in Swedish health policy’. Health Economics, Policy and Law, 10, pp ...
متن کاملA Theoretical Study of Solidarity in American Society: The Case of the “Ground Zero Mosque” Controversy
The paper uses the case study of the controversy regarding the construction of a mosque near the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in Manhattan, New York, to analyze the different theoretical approaches to the concept of solidarity. It is argued that the presence of affectional solidarity which is based on feelings of caring, friendship and love was very limited in the case under study. Instea...
متن کامل