(Health interests; 07-03; p.4)

Interests

Even if one does not decide on the question whether health is a public or private good, one can make out different interest groups in this policy field, i.e. people involved of which certain economic interests can reasonably be presupposed. The following figure shall illustrate relevant actors and interests presupposed:

actors	interests
employers	cost cuts
employees	cost cuts or (at least) constant disposable incomes
government	financeable budget
patients	payable high quality services
doctors, hospitals	secure income, sometimes profit
public insurance	balanced budget
private insurance	profit
pharmaceutical industry	profit

This classification is obviously an artificial one, i.e. there are overlappings in reality between the mentioned actors: a patient e.g. may also be an employer, employee or doctor. Nevertheless it serves the purpose of identifying interests and in a second step helps find winners and losers of the agreed measures.

Establishing a ranking of actors leads to the construction of the following hierarchy of interests:

actors	interests, effects
private health insurances, pharmaceutical industry, (doctors, hospitals)	profit, cost increasing
government, public health insurances, (doctors, hospitals), (employees)	balanced budget, neutral
employers, (employees)	profit, cost decreasing
( ) = partially assortable, effects = in respect to the health system

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