The Czech Health Care System

Over the last decades, the Czech healthcare system has undergone significant reforms. Regardless of its good performances in terms of healthcare spending and improved population’s health, the sustainability and functionality of the Czech system still faces important challenges. It is particularly vulnerable to economic shocks and an aging society, it suffers from inefficiencies in hospital management and experiences profound changes in the health workforce. To tackle these problems, policy makers have been working to reform the system but these challenges have not been yet overcome. The present chapter provides an overview of these reforms and their outcomes. First, we describe the main features of the healthcare system in the Czech Republic. Then, we discuss its main problems and the policy interventions that have been implemented to tackle these problems with a particular focus on evidence provided by the health economics literature on the actual effects of the reforms.