Toward a sustainable welfare and health system in Spain

This chapter discusses recent initiatives to deal with the problem of the unsustainability of social protection systems and traditional healthcare in Spain, as an example of a Mediterranean welfare state. Over the past few years, the Spanish government has been stressing the vulnerability of current social protection regimes (Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, 2002a, 2002b). Many of the attempts to resolve them have not been successful, however.