Health Care Inequalities between Italy and Germany: An Econometric Analysis

The phenomenon that life expectancy and health status could differ across socioeconomic groups is called 'health inequalities' and is evident in today's societies. Reasons for their existence could be that there are, inter alia, obstacles in access to medical services and that patients' actual need in lower classes remains unmet. Therefore, the institutional design of the health care system could be decisive in reducing health care inequalities and thus also in reducing health inequalities in general. This paper aims at contributing to the historical question which health system is best in reducing health dispar…