The Fund supports networks of state health policy decision makers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund supports two state leadership programs for legislative and executive branch state government officials committed to improving population health.
The Fund identifies and shares policy ideas and analysis to advance state health leadership, strong primary care, and sustainable health care costs.
Keep up with news and updates from the Milbank Memorial Fund. And read the latest blogs from our thought leaders, including Fund President Christopher F. Koller.
The Fund publishes The Milbank Quarterly, as well as reports, issues briefs, and case studies on topics important to health policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is is a foundation that works to improve population health and health equity.
June 1991 (Volume 69)
Quarterly Article
Rudolf Klein
Oct 4, 2024
September 2024
Sep 18, 2024
Back to The Milbank Quarterly
The fascination of American and British scholars with each other’s health care systems is a case study of the risks and benefits of the comparative approach. The risks stem from the temptation to seek solutions to national problems in the experience of other countries in a way that ignores the fact that whereas institutions may, in theory at least, be exportable, their social, political, and economic environment is not. The benefits derive from the fact that only a comparative approach can hope to identify the factors that are specific to national health care systems, as distinct from being common to all such systems. Finally, a comparative perspective can extend national ideas about what is possible and at the same time provide the understanding that must precede prescription.
Author(s): Rudolf Klein
Download the Article
Read on JSTOR
Volume 69, Issue 2 (pages 275–291) Published in 1991