Healthcare System Types: A Conceptual Framework for Comparison

This article addresses the need to establish a comprehensive conceptual framework for analysing healthcare systems and their transformations. It begins by offering an overview of the current state of the art in the field, pointing to the literature’s absence of conceptual robustness in the definition of system types. By exploring the dimensions ‘financing’, ‘provision’ and ‘regulation’ of healthcare, the article then proceeds deductively in line with the ‘Weberian method of ideal-types’ to establish a taxonomy of 27 healthcare systems, of which three can be identified as ‘ideal-types’. When applying this concept, not only can differences between healthcare systems be analysed, but also changes over time. The article concludes by identifying three forms of healthcare system transformation.