ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the main measures introduced by successive governments since 1990 to bring about a transformation of the health care system in post-communist Hungary. It lays special emphasis on changes to the financing of health care; the issue of citizen and interest group participation; and the ownership of hospitals. A recurrent theme in the making of health policy has been its highly contested nature and the perceived ineffectiveness of several of the measures that have been introduced. The paper explores this problem through an analysis of key characteristics of the Hungarian polity as it has emerged since 1990, and the relations between policy actors in the making of health policy in Hungary. Drawing on documentary and interview-based research with a wide range of different state and social actors, including government ministers, civil servants, political parties, consultants and representatives of doctors and other health care workers, the chapter examines debates and competition between them in their attempts to influence policy-making.
