Global Convergence or Persistent Cultural Variation? Public Attitudes to Government Intervention for Health Care.

Since the 1970s, researchers have argued that rising costs of health care and aging populations would bring health care systems into global convergence. More recently, welfare state theorists have put forth a more general thesis that groups of nation-states are diverging. Are health care systems converging in a single direction? Or are they diverging in several directions? This study provide a broad assessment of these questions on health care system. Using the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data on individual attitudes toward health care in 21 countries, we examine if and how public attitudes toward government are influenced by macro (e.g., national economy, regime types) and micro (e.g., age, gender) factors. The results show that the public?s attitudes toward the government?s role in health care reflect not only their individual circumstances, but also larger cultural climate and socio-historical institutional arrangements defined at the level of national polity. These national circumstances, particularly the proportion of the GNP devoted to health care, shape people?s attitudes toward retrenchment policies. People?s preferences are also associated with the organization of their health care systems. The results provide some support for both convergence and divergence hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]