Abstract

Solidarity is the fundamental principle of the majority of the European health care systems. According to the classical distinction, there are three kinds of solidarity: risk solidarity, age solidarity and income solidarity. The aim of this principle is to create a community based on risk sharing, mutual obligation and care, taken especially of the suffering, the troubled and the disadvantaged. The progressive privatization of health care and the individualization of risk in health insurance motivate the question about the sustainability of this principle in many European health care systems. Concurrently, technological progress change the outlook of modern medicine and health care, inspiring the revival of the debate on the role of solidarity in health care systems and new struggles for this principle. Discussions of ethical issues, social activism and the implementation of new legislative solutions stress the importance and the unchanging value of solidarity in varying social conditions