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September 1986 (Volume 64)
Quarterly Article
Sep 2, 2026
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French health care faced the dual crises of rising costs and excess physicians. No government, whether left or right, could avoid focusing reform on the extensive public hospital system. Many differences introduced by the Socialists after 1981 were rhetorical and relational-matters of “democratization” of governance and “control” of physicians. Paradoxically, the two major structural reforms, “departmentalization” and “global budgeting,” were extensions of actions begun under preceding governments. Neither has come to fruition yet.
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Volume 64, Issue 3 (pages 392–413) Published in 1986
