In this comment, and drawing on the papers in the special issue, we ask: what are the core questions for the future of research into health law and policy, and European health law and policy more specifically? We first sketch the general functions and values of health law and policy. We then outline how these functions and values are affected by globalisation and Europeanisation, on the one hand, and technological change and digitalisation, on the other. In light of these developments we carve out some questions for future research and the implications of this agenda for the academic community that is working on European health law and policy.

Health policy is one of the most debated and analysed areas of social policy internationally, and encompasses a multitude of seemingly disparate but in fact largely interrelated issues. For example, how should we motivate doctors to improve performance? What is ‘performance’, and how do we measure it? What is the impact of antitrust law on provider behaviour? How do we ensure that we attain the most benefit from our health care resources? What is ‘benefit’, why is it defined in the ways that it is, and how do we measure it? Can the implementation of World Trade Organization regulations produce legislation that favours public sector health care development?

Many health care reforms rely on competition although health care differs in many respects from the assumptions of perfect competition. Finnish occupational health services provide an opportunity to study empirically competition, ownership and payment systems and the performance of providers. In these markets employers (purchasers) choose the provider and prices are market determined. The price regulation of public providers was abolished in 1995. We had data on providers from 1992, 1995, 1997, 2000 and 2004. The unbalanced panel consisted of 1145 providers and 4059 observations. Our results show that in more competitive markets providers in general offered a higher share of medical care compared to preventive services. The association between unit prices and revenues and market environment varied according to the provider type. For-profit providers had lower prices and revenues in markets with numerous providers. The public providers in more competitive regions were more sensitive to react to the abolishment of their price regulation by raising their prices. Employer governed providers had weaker association between unit prices or revenues and competition. The market share of for-profit providers was negatively associated with productivity, which was the only sign of market spillovers we found in our study.

Studies of German health policy often highlight institutional constraints to reform. However, based on a case study of the introduction of clinical standards as part of the Disease Management Programmes for chronic illnesses, this article suggests that negotiating reform at an arm's length from the state can also lead to governance change, although the strengthening of hierarchy is not as prominent as that in some of the countries studied in this special issue. As such, the case of Germany offers interesting insights into the politics of governance change that occur in the shadow, but largely without the direct involvement of the state, which is typical of a corporatist health-care state. In this respect, the analysis identifies three leverages for change. First, the change in medical governance explicitly builds on earlier reforms and gives the reform alliance a competitive edge. Second, the organisations of the joint self-administration, as a more or less open ally of the state, play an influential role throughout the reform process. Importantly and third, this is complemented by the state steering at a distance.

The commentary discusses key issues for assessment of performance management within health care. It supports the ambition to develop more realistic understandings of performance management based on insights from behavioral economics as suggested by Adam Oliver. However, it also points to several pitfalls and potential risks to consider when doing so. The commentary concludes that this is a promising field, but further research is needed to support the development of policy instruments.

One goal of the Affordable Care Act is to increase insurance coverage by improving competition and lowering premiums. To facilitate this goal, the federal government enacted online marketplaces in the 395 rating areas spanning 34 states that chose not to establish their own state-run marketplaces. Few multivariate regression studies analyzing the effects of competition on premiums suffer from endogeneity, due to simultaneity and omitted variable biases. However, United Healthcare’s decision to enter these marketplaces in 2015 provides the researcher with an opportunity to address this endogeneity problem. Exploiting the variation caused by United Healthcare’s entry decision as an instrument for competition, we study the impact of competition on premiums during the first 2 years of these marketplaces. Combining panel data from five different sources and controlling for 12 variables, we find that one more insurer in a rating area leads to a 6.97% reduction in the second-lowest-priced silver plan premium, which is larger than the estimated effects in existing literature. Furthermore, we run a threshold analysis and find that competition’s effects on premiums become statistically insignificant if there are four or more insurers in a rating area. These findings are robust to alternative measures of premiums, inclusion of a non-linear term in the regression models and a county-level analysis.

This comparison of institutions of science advice during COVID-19 between the Westminster systems of England/UK and Ontario/Canada focuses on the role of science in informing public policy in two central components of the response to the pandemic: the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and the procuring of vaccines. It compares and contrasts established and purpose-built bodies with varying degrees of independence from the political executive, and shows how each attempted to manage the tensions between scientific and governmental logics of accountability as they negotiated the boundary between science and policy. It uses the comparison to suggest potential lessons about the relative merits and drawbacks of different institutional arrangements for science advice to governments in an emergency.

Using Demographic and Health Survey data (2015–16) from the state of Andhra Pradesh, we estimate the differential probability of hysterectomy (removal of uterus) for women (aged 15–49 years) covered under publicly funded health insurance (PFHI) schemes relative to those not covered. To reduce the extent of selection bias into treatment assignment (PFHI coverage) we use matching methods, propensity score matching, and coarsened exact matching, achieving a comparable treatment and control group. We find that PFHI coverage increases the probability of undergoing a hysterectomy by 7–11 percentage points in our study sample. Sub-sample analysis indicates that the observed increase is significant for women with lower education levels and higher order parity. Additionally, we perform a test of no-hidden bias by estimating the treatment effect on placebo outcomes (doctor's visit, health check-up). The robustness of the results is established using different matching specifications and sensitivity analysis. The study results are indicative of increased demand for surgical intervention associated with PFHI coverage in our study sample, suggesting a need for critical evaluation of the PFHI scheme design and delivery in the context of increasing reliance on PFHI schemes for delivering specialised care to poor people, neglect of preventive and primary care, and the prevailing fiscal constraints in the healthcare sector.

The allocation of resources is a crucial part of political decision-making in healthcare, but explicit priorities are rarely set when resources are distributed. Two areas that have received some attention in research about legitimacy and priority-setting decisions in healthcare are the role of technical expert agencies as mediating institutions and the role of elected politicians. This paper investigates a political priority-setting advisory committee within a regional authority in Sweden. The aim is to explore how a political body can serve as a mediating institution for priority-setting in healthcare by disentangling the arrangements of its work in terms of what role it performs in the organisation and what it should do. The findings illustrate that promoting the notion of explicit priority-setting and the political aspects inherent in priority-setting in political healthcare management can contribute to consolidating political governance and leadership. There is, however, a complex tension between stability and conflicting values which has implications for the role of politicians as citizens' democratic representatives. This paper enhances our understanding of the role of mediating institutions and political properties of healthcare priority-setting, as well as our understanding of political and democratic healthcare governance in local self-government.

Although eliminating financial barriers to care is a necessary condition for improving access to health services, it is not sufficient. Given the contrasting health systems with regard to financing and organization of health insurance in the United States and Canada, there is a long history of comparing these countries. We extend the empirical studies on the Canadian and US health systems by comparing access to ambulatory care as measured by hospitalization rates for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSC) in Montreal and New York City. We find that, in New York, ACSC rates were more than twice as high (12.6 per 1000 population) as in Montreal (4.8 per 1000 population). After controlling for age, sex, and number of diagnoses, significant differences in ACSC rates are present in both cities, but are more pronounced in New York. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that universal, first-dollar health insurance coverage has contributed to lower ACSC rates in Montreal than New York. However, Montreal’s surprisingly low ACSC rate calls for further research.