Cost Containment and New Priorities in Health Care: A Study of the European Community

This study describes the measures taken in the 12 countries which constitute the European Community to control the cost of publicly financed health care and establish new priorities over the period 1983 to 1988 or 1989. It updates the author's earlier study published in 1984 which described developments between 1977 and 1983. The information covers developments and plans up to September 1990. The central aim was to see which measures among the many which had been tried were retained in the long run, which had been found impractical to operate and which had been abandoned as a result of political pressures. A second aim was to see how far the publication in 1985 of targets for Health For All by the European Office of the World Health Organization and endorsed by all countries of the region had in fact begun to influence the priorities of the countries concerned.