Slovak Health-care Reform: Greater Privatization

Abstract

The paper summarizes recent health-care reform in Slovakia and the reform's general rationale, provides a brief theoretical background, and describes the reform measures both adopted and proposed. The authors assess the early experience and the impact of the undertaken reform. The main feature of Slovak health-care reform has been the commercialization of the sector. While much of the reform is still in process, and is thus hard to quantify (for instance, direct expenditures by patients are increasing, while the revenues of certain interest groups are declining), many early steps have produced concrete improvements important toward securing social legitimacy.public expenditure; health care; reform