The impact of social factors on health spending

Abstract

To counteract the harmful effects of the market in health care due to its specificities (overconsumption due to insurance of care, selection of patients according to risk, asymmetry of information between providers and patients, externalities, etc.), The state has historically taken, in the vast majority of European countries, an important place both in the financing and in the organization of the production of healthcare. Without calling into question the indispensable role of the state in this sector, its intervention often resulted in a bureaucratic health system where the incentives for efficiency were weak.