The reforms, as turning points in the country's social organization, often remained incomplete in their implementation. Such was the reform of the National Health System (NHS) established in 1983, which erased a meteoric path between impressive development of infrastructure and medical support services on one hand, and institutional inadequacy, low performance, and citizen dissatisfaction with services on the other.

The book attempts to answer these crucial contradictions and the agonizing question: how did such a proposal for health, not only morally and institutionally established on principles of equality and universal coverage, but also accepted by society as a whole, "derail" on its path to completion?

The analysis focuses on the factors that determined the "meteoric steps" of the reform project; factors that traverse the political, party-cratic, and economic environment, social and collective support for reforms, the influence of pressure groups and interests, and of course, the system's ability to manage changes and efficiently use resources.