Differently from the United States, where market competition, individual responsibility, technological progress, and consumerism are still the dominant values in a health care system considered as a ‘market’ just as any other economic market,
in Europe the debate on health care reforms involves various stakeholders such as politicians, managers, physicians and citizens. Particularly, the focus here is on physicians’ different levels of accountability in the rationing process and priorities selection, in order to redefine the ‘social contract’ among physicians
and the State in new terms within the current welfare systems.