HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE EUROPEAN UNION - CONCEPTIONS OF ORGANIZATION AND FUNCTIONING HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS (System ochrony zdrowia w Unii Europejskiej - koncepcje organizacji i funkcjonowania systemów ochrony zdrowia)

In each European country national healthcare system has its own specific features which originate from historical conditions as well as current state of socio-economic development and social policies. All of those systems show some similarities with regard to legal, organizational and financial issues, as well as how the system and its features are running. It is worth to mention that none of the European Union members has accepted common healthcare system policy. Key EU treaties including Treaty on European Union (1992) and Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) do not impose an obligation to do so. Other stipulations in above mentioned treaties undoubtedly shows no intention to intervene in organization and functioning within members' healthcare systems. Therefore diversity of adopted solutions has been granted. The course of European Communities policy is to develop common standards and rules of healthcare systems with regard to public welfare as the biggest asset of each nation. This paper presents two main models that most of worlds healthcare systems are based on. Those models give background for the comparison of various healthcare systems run in the European Union.