ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

Abstract

In France, the access to healthcare has been conceived as a social right and is
mainly managed through the coverage of the population by the National Health
Insurance, which is a part of the whole French social security scheme. This
system was based on the so-called Bismarckian model, which implies that it
requires full employment and solid family links, as the insured persons are the
workers and their dependents. This paper examines the typical problems that
this system has to face as far as the right to healthcare is concerned. First, it
addresses the need to introduce some universal coverage programs, in order to
integrate the excluded population. Then, it addresses the issue of financial
sustainability as the structural weakness of the French system – in which
healthcare is still mainly provided by private practice physicians and governed
by the principle of freedom – leads to conceive and implement complex forms of
regulations between the State, the Social security institutions and the healthcare
providers.