Private non commercial arrangements, such as mutuals, go back a few hundreds of years, or more, in several OECD countries, pre-dating many public health coverage or social insurance programmes. Many of the countries where private health insurance has a prominent role – for example, the United States, Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands, France – have some tradition of private financing and private provision of health services. Public health insurance systems developed on top of, and in some cases replaced, pre-existing voluntary health insurance arrangements in Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands. The newer public entitlements then changed the role of private coverage and sometimes reduced the permitted scope of.
