The Spanish health care system: lessons for newly industrialized countries

This article summarizes the organization, financing, and delivery of health care services in Spain, and discusses the elements that made it possible t o maintain high levels of health among the population, while spending compa ratively fewer resources on the health care system than most industrialized countries. The case of Spain is of particular interest for newly industrialized countr ies, because of the fast evolution that it has undergone in recent years. C onsidered, by United Nations' economic standards, a developing country unti l 1964, Spain became in a few years the fastest growing economy in the worl d after Japan. By the early 1970s the infant mortality rate was already low er than in Britain or the United States.