National Health Systems: An Originality of the South?

The non-contributive national health systems (NHS) of the Southern European countries signify a deviation from the ideal type of the European state-corporatist systems, which are basically based on the insurance principle. Actually, it is, inter alia, on this special feature that the main arguments for the existence of a separate South European welfare model rest (see Chapter 1). There are two principal forms of health care organisation in the European Union: the tax-financed national health service systems and those operating with social insurance in which insurance funds have different degrees of legal and economic independence from the government (Jakubowski, 1998: 5 ff). The main peculiarity of the Southern countries is that, although their social protection system is based on insurance principles, their national health systems are mainly tax-financed and their services are provided universally. However, civil and military servants belong to special schemes in almost all countries, and, especially in Greece, work status still determines the level of some of the services provided. In general, heterogeneity of coverage entitlements remains the rule, at least in Portugal and Greece.