ABSTRACT
The aim of the paper is to analyse the main policies of privatization of the Italian NHS, now partly under implementation and partly under discussion. To do so some prior attention is given both to the development of a taxonomy of the different meanings of privatization and to a brief description of the context in which privatization proposals have arisen. The conclusion is that these policies, though very similar to the ones under discussion (and, partially under implementation) in continental and northern Europe, still continue to be accompanied by the persistence of many of the traits of the so-called Mediterranean welfare state, above all a poor administrative culture.
