This article focuses on two major questions concerning the changing role of the state in the health care systems of OECD countries. Firstly, we ask whether major changes in the level of state involvement (in health care systems) have occurred in the past thirty years. Given the fact that three...

This paper seeks to explain a convergence trend in the role of the state in OECD healthcare systems. By convergence we mean that healthcare systems become increasingly similar with regards to the public/private mix in financing and service provision, and with respect to their regulatory...

The economic crises of the 1970s marked the end of the 'Golden Age' of the welfare state and triggered a broad range of cost containment measures in OECD countries. In the healthcare sector the difficulties of cutting back state involvement are largely caused by the fact that the legitimacy of...