Two-tier health care is a situation that arises when a basic government-provided health care system provides basic, medical necessities while a secondary tier of care exists for those who can purchase additional health care services or receive better quality and faster access.
Most countries have both public and privately funded health care, but the degree to which this creates a quality differential depends on the way the two systems are managed, funded, and regulated. Some publicly funded universal health care systems deliver excellent service and the private system tends to be small and not highly differentiated. In other, typically poorer countries, the public health system is underfunded and over stretched, offering opportunities for private companies to deliver better-quality, albeit more expensive health care coverage.
Read more about Two-tier Health Care: Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States
Famous quotes containing the words health and/or care:
“At last I feel the equal of my parents. Knowing you are going to have a child is like extending yourself in the world, setting up a tent and saying “Here I am, I am important.” Now that I’m going to have a child it’s like the balance is even. My hand is as rich as theirs, maybe for the first time. I am no longer just a child.”
—Anonymous Father. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come
Nor care beyond today.”
—Thomas Gray (1716–1771)