Competition in health care. US and West European examples

Everybody from the government and insurers to the providers and consumers these days is talking about market competition in health care. But what do they mean by it? Is everybody talking about the same things? The question is fundamental because various health-care players take part in shaping health policy, but little is said about how these players envisage the competition from their own point of view. The brief survey of experience in developed countries pays attention mainly to the examples of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany. Analysis of these shows that health-care competition in all of them is limited and great caution is needed in evaluating its results.