The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary

The summary of the selected article appears at the bottom of the page. In order to get back to the contents of the issue this article belongs to you have to access the link from the title. In order to see all the articles of the archive which have as author/co-author one of the authors mentioned below, you have to access the link from the author's name.

  
       
         
    STUDIA SOCIOLOGIA - Issue no. 2 / 2008  
         
  Article:   QUASI-MARKETIZATION AND SECURITY IN THE ROMANIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: THE CASE OF THE NORTH-WESTERN REGION.

Authors:  LIVIA POPESCU, CRISTINA RAŢ. 		 
       
         
  Abstract:   The unequal distribution of risks can be seen as a social division per se, which fuels further inequalities. The engagement to limit the amount of insecurity faced by individuals is embedded in the very notions of social citizenship (Mashall, 1950) and welfare state (Briggs, 1961), being particularly salient in the case of public health care systems. State retrenchment from the role of service provision and the introduction of market forces in the functioning of public services had specific consequences on the quality of the “safety belt” provided by the public health care systems. Looking at the particular case of the Romanian public health care system, this paper investigates the socio-economic structural factors which lead to inequalities in the insured-status, presenting some of the findings of the research project ECHISERV 2007: Disparities in the Use of Public Health Care Services in the North-West Development Region of Romania. Three dimensions of (in)security in the public health care system are investigated: coverage (having or not health insurance), knowledge about rights and duties, and trust in the system. The results are discussed in the light of Sen’s concept of “protective security” and its congruencies with the critiques of quasi-marketization of health care services.

Keywords: health care systems, inequality, quasi-markets, capability approach 		 
         
     
         
         
      Back to previous page