Introduction

Abstract

European Health Care Systems (HCS) are very complex policy fields also in comparison with other institutions of the Welfare State. They have three peculiarities that, taken all together, make them unique: they are mostly based on services and not on transfers (as pensions for instance); they are at the same time a capital—and human- intensive sector, which requires a large amount of investments in technology, infrastructures, but also in high skilled professionals; they tend to offer, through various mechanisms, a universalistic-like coverage, with possible limited differentiation among users.