[Health care provided by national health services and private insurance]

Italy, as well as other European countries and the USA, is facing the necessity of a radical reform of the National Health Service in the context of more general social reforms. Two types of management, state- or private-funded, are coming under analysis in the attempt to define how to provide effective assistance to all citizens in need. The efficient but restrictive services provided by private insurances are compared here to the somehow inefficient but more supportive forms of care provided by state-financed services. The necessity to implement a cost-effective but well-operating system will most probably rely on a tight linkage between the public and the private care providers. Such mixed forms of Health Services, with the additional help of charities, will be able to provide the essential assistance to all in need, and an effective care to citizens full aware of the necessity to fairly contribute to their personal and community care.