Equity and solidarity: the context of health care in The Netherlands.

The current debate on health care resource allocation in the Netherlands is characterized by a social context in which two values are generally and traditionally accepted as being equally fundamental:solidarity and equity. We will present an outline of the distinctive features of the Dutch health care system, and analyze the present state of affairs in the resource allocation debate. The presuppositions of the political call for constraint and (renewed) government supervision and the role of the specific value context in recent proposals for reconstruction of the Dutch health care system will be evaluated.