Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Postmodern Society: Challenges for the Czech Healthcare Reform
Zuzana Darmopilová, Zuzana Zigová

ABSTRACT. Postmodern society and its demands challenge every dimension of human life. One of the spheres, in which these changes are significantly becoming evident, is the sector of healthcare. The aim of the article is the insight to Czech healthcare system and contemporary reformative attempts. Our interest will be dedicated mainly to economic transformation from central-planned economy to market economy. In the field of healthcare, we will focus on the change of understanding the conception of health and individual responsibility itself.

Health insurers monitor primarily the effectiveness of spending financial resources. Nowadays they are dealing with problem of limited competition, and therefore they are not able to resolve the waste of resources, which obviously is going on.

Providers, besides economic interests, determined by system of reimbursement for health services, try to fulfil social interests as well, which result from the mission of medical profession (altruism versus profit, dehumanization of medicine). For patients, except of the quality and equality of healthcare, the improvement of being informed and the possibility of participating in co-deciding are important. The government and the local governments as well are interested mainly in effectiveness of system as a whole.

KEYWORDS: healthcare, health insurance, effectiveness, ethics, the Czech Republic.

JEL classification: I11, I18, G22, M14, P2.