Regional Decentralization and Health Care Reform in Spain (1976-1996)

In: South European society & politics, Band 1, Heft 3, S. 115-134

Abstract

Investigates factors & implications of the decentralization of regional health care systems in Spain, 1976-1996. Using L. Jacobs's (1992) & S. Tarrow's (1995) notions of the distinction between extensive & intensive public preferences & the influence of international concepts regarding state & social institutions on public & elite preferences, the traditional functional explanation of regional deregulation is challenged. Analyses of Spanish health care reform under the democratic & socialist governments of the late 1970s & early 1980s, the implementation of reform based on the UK's National Health Service paradigm during the late 1980s, & reform instituted in Catalonia since 1990 indicate the problems of successfully implementing policy reform when authority is transferred to regional governments. Consequently, it is asserted that successful health care reform in Spain requires the combination of the political elites' intense preferences & the public's extensive preferences for systematic reform. The characteristics of Spain's & other southern European welfare nations' health care systems are compared. 31 References. Adapted from the source document.