Author: Christiane Landsiedel
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638362493
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 22
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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Sociology - Political Sociology, Majorities, Minorities, grade: A, University of Dalarna (Political Sociology), course: Restructuring the Welfare State, language: English, abstract: As health care is among the most personal issues, this is one reason why it is also among the most politically discussed as cost containment has become a priority of health care policy. Health care has consumed a large and growing portion of social spending in all advanced industrialised societies, particularly in the last decade. This cost explosion coincided with the global economic slowdown and worries about the fiscal viability of the welfare state. Reasons for escalating health care costs are, although to varying degrees, common to Western countries. The health care sector provides fertile ground for technological innovations that may prolong life but at considerable expense. Moreover, once these discoveries are made, it is extremely difficult for insurers or governments to limit their provision, as patients demand access to these treatments. Furthermore, the aging population of Western countries has direct consequences for health care because older persons are more likely to be in need of cost intensive treatment and/or care due to acute illness or chronic conditions. At the same time, birth rates are no longer balanced with increasing longevity, so that there will be fewer working age persons in the future to bear the financial requirements for elderly care. Governments and employers claimed that health care costs posed immediate and longterm problems and began to search for ways to address them. The ‘new politics of the welfare state’ – Pierson’s (1996) famous concept, which deals with welfare state reform in the face of changing demographic and tougher economic conditions – has also modified the position of diverse welfare state stakeholders. The actions and preferences of payers and the state are determined by the prevailing health care system as well as by the political system and whether it provides them an opportunity to influence health policies.
Author: Katharina Böhm
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317013549
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
This pathbreaking book investigates welfare state change in the area of health care- a field widely neglected by comparative welfare state research. While some work on health care expenditure exists, health care rights have not been systematically studied since social rights have exclusively focused on entitlement to cash benefits. Addressing this research gap, Böhm analyses in what way the social right to health care has been modified in the course of general welfare state transformation since the late 1970s. Taking England and Germany as examples, she assesses how health care reforms conducted under the conditions of constrained budgets, demographic ageing, and rapid medical progress, have altered access to and generosity of public health care systems over the past 35 years. The book’s findings significantly increase our understanding of social rights and reveals fundamental differences of approach: while Germany provides absolute and enforceable rights to health care for each (entitled) individual, English social health care rights are directed towards the population as a whole and contingent upon the availability of resources, i.e. they are not absolute and not enforceable. This distinction between individual and collective social rights will be an important contribution to the theory of social rights given its applicability to other types of social rights and its usefulness in tracing changes in social rights over time.
Author: Christiane Landsiedel
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638414523
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 58
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Book Description
Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Sociology - Political Sociology, Majorities, Minorities, grade: A (Excellent), University of Dalarna (European Political Sociology), 60 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The provision of welfare is a defining characteristic of the states in Europe, as well as the target of various reform efforts. Within the European welfare states, health care is embedded as a public affair and despite slight variations, the majority of European states guarantees most of the cost of using health services to almost all of their citizens (OECD 1992; 1994). As health care is among the most personal issues, it is also among the most politically discussed. During the 1990s, reforms were introduced in the health care sector in many European countries with the common goal to make existing health care systems more cost efficient and gain greater control over how public resources were spent within them (Mossialos/Le Grand 1999). However, expenditure cuts with regard to the health care system are politically delicate.
Author: T. Fleckenstein
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230299342
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
Investigates the transformation of German labour market policy, showing that Germany has departed from the conservative-corporatist path of welfare, especially with the Hartz Legislation of the Red-Green government.
Author: Jochen Clasen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191533734
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Welfare state reform has been a focus of domestic policy making in many European countries in recent years. Representing almost a third of the EU population and two distinctive models of European welfare states, this book compares development in British and German social policy over the past 25 years. During this time four periods of conservative governments were followed by centre-left administrations in both countries. Moreover, the respective economic and social positions of the two countries have been reversed. Adverse socio-economic developments have contributed to the waning of the erstwhile appeal of Germany as a role model of welfare capitalism. By contrast, the UK is seen by some as being on its way to gaining such a position. These trends provide an analytically intriguing background for a systematic contextualized comparison of reform processes in the two welfare states. Concentrating on three core domains of social policy, the book argues that unemployment support and public pension programmes have been subjected to retrenchment, as well as to restructuring. By contrast, family policies have been extended in both countries. However, patterns of retrenchment and restructuring differ across countries and programmes. In order to explain similarities and variations, the book emphasizes the relevance of three sets of factors: shifts in party policy preferences and power relations, three institutional variables, and contingent factors impinging on policy direction and profiles. Within pension policy, the relevance of different institutional characteristics and the respective balance between private and public forms of retirement suggest that the concept of 'path dependence' is particularly instructive. By contrast, differences in programme structures and their role within national political economies prove to be most relevant for the understanding of changes in unemployment support policy. Less institutionally embedded and expanding, the trajectories of family policies have to be seen in the context of dynamic party policy preferences.
Author: Peter Koslowski
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783642644948
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The welfare state has been developed first and in its largest extent in North-Western Europe, in Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It is also in these countries where the crisis and financial problems of the welfare state are felt first. The need for restructuring the welfare state is a challenge of a supra-national, European and international scale. The book analyses the different welfare states in Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden with outlooks to Eastern Europe and Japan and examines the proposals for reforming and restructuring the welfare state in Europe. The book offers a unique combination of empirical and philosophical-ethical analysis of the welfare state.
Author: Hans-Werner Sinn
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Argues that the high level of unemployment in Germany not only creates a major challenge for the German welfare state, but is to a good extent caused by the way the country's welfare system is designed. This book reviews the public debate on labour market reforms, and discusses the first set of reforms that have been enacted.
Author: Who Regional Office for Europe
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN: 9289051701
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 148
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Book Description
What are public health services? Countries across Europe understand what they are or what they should include differently. This study describes the experiences of nine countries detailing the ways they have opted to organize and finance public health services and train and employ their public health workforce. It covers England France Germany Italy the Netherlands Slovenia Sweden Poland and the Republic of Moldova and aims to give insights into current practice that will support decision-makers in their efforts to strengthen public health capacities and services. Each country chapter captures the historical background of public health services and the context in which they operate; sets out the main organizational structures; assesses the sources of public health financing and how it is allocated; explains the training and employment of the public health workforce; and analyses existing frameworks for quality and performance assessment. The study reveals a wide range of experience and variation across Europe and clearly illustrates two fundamentally different approaches to public health services: integration with curative health services (as in Slovenia or Sweden) or organization and provision through a separate parallel structure (Republic of Moldova). The case studies explore the context that explain this divergence and its implications. This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications Organization and financing of public health services in Europe and The role of public health organizations in addressing public health problems in Europe: the case of obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance (both forthcoming).
Author: Bernhard Ebbinghaus
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783319876054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
Studying the political economy of welfare state reform, this edited collection focuses on the role of public opinion and organized interests in respect to policy change. It highlights that welfare states are hard pressed to reform in order to cope with ongoing socio-economic and demographic challenges. While public opinion is commonly seen to oppose welfare cuts and organized interests such as trade unions have tended to defend acquired social rights, this book shows that there have been emergent tendencies in favour of reform. Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below analyses a wide range of social policies affecting healthcare, pensions and the labour market to demonstrate how social groups and interest organizations differ and interact in their approaches to reform. Comparing Britain and Germany, with its two very different welfare states, it provides a European perspective on the changing approaches to welfare. This book will be of interest to those wanting to learn more about the politics of the welfare state and of relevance to students and academics in the fields of political economy and comparative social policy.
Author:
Publisher: National Academies
ISBN:
Category : Health insurance
Languages : en
Pages : 120
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Book Description
