Deliberating together: Public deliberation in the context of the Hungarian health insurance reform

It is most often the case that planners of health care reforms and policies try to solve highly complex, or wicked problems. Issues that have no single experts. Collectively, by gathering many different people and bringing them to genuine deliberation, we can, however, create an emergent understanding and commitment, which helps us to tackle these problems. In this study, the prospects of public deliberation in the late Hungarian health insurance reform are examined. The Hungarian health insurance reform, as a highly debated and ultimately failed reform, is considered to be a useful model to exemplify the prospects of public deliberation. The objective is to point out how public deliberation could have improved the process of reforming the Hungarian health care.