Public health care systems in countries all over the world are confronted with increasing difficulties. The problems are mainly economic, but they also reflect difficulties of adaptation to changes both in society as a whole and within the health care services.

The atmosphere of a crisis results from internal struggles within the health care system and with other welfare and social services that face economical difficulties, while confronting accelerated demographical, social, technological, and cultural changes.

The situation is more acute because of the inability of modern society to provide the public health care system with resources (human and financial) according to the expectations that have developed in the welfare state since the end of World War II.

New welfare policy, adjusted to the changes that occur within the society, is needed. In this struggle, the public health services find themselves in the center of the discussion as one of the whole of public social services and in competition with other public welfare systems.

Economical and organizational problems are the most acute and attract a great deal of interest, and they are amply discussed in many articles and conferences. I shall not deal with them in this article.