Nursing homes are where some of the most vulnerable live and work. In too many homes, the conditions of work make it difficult to make care as good as it can be. For the last eight years an international team from Germany, Sweden, Norway, the UK, the US and Canada have been searching for promising practices that treat residents, families and staff with dignity and respect in ways that can also bring joy. While we did find ideas worth sharing, we also saw a disturbing trend toward privatization. Privatization is the process of moving away not only from public delivery and public payment for health services but also from a commitment to shared responsibility, democratic decision-making, and the idea that the public sector operates according to a logic of service to all. This book documents moves toward privatization in the six countries and their consequences for families, staff, residents, and, eventually, us all. None of the countries has escaped pressure from powerful forces in and outside government pushing for privatization in all its forms. However, the wide variations in the extent and nature of privatization indicate privatization is not inevitable and our research shows there are alternatives.

An analysis of the transition from universal, publicly funded health care to New Labour s application of market principles: a national institution reaching crisis point and a key lesson for those concerned with health care everywhere.

Privatizing Health Services in Africa analyzes the disappearance of public health in the form of state services in Africa, and the growth of a private market in health care that will serve primarily an urban elite. Meredeth Turshen considers the implications of introducing private insurance in countries with growing unemployment, a shrinking formal job sector, and a lack of social security programs or other safety nets. She debates the pros and cons of shifting the delivery of health services to the nongovernmental sector in the context of new concepts of the role of the state. Many of the schemes to privatize the purchase and sale of pharmaceuticals reverse decades of United Nations work challenging the power of the multinational drug industry. Turshen weighs these policy changes in light of the World Bank's eclipse of the World Health Organization as the premier UN health policy agency. Until now, no book has disputed the World Bank's plans to privatize health care in Africa. This is the first book-length analysis of policy changes in light of monetarism and globalization. Throughout the book, Turshen examines the implications of privatization for gender equity. She also provides a case study of Zimbabwe and comparative material from Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. Her study makes a contribution to current debates on the impact of structural adjustment policies on health and the design of health services in the Third World.

This work deals with the current health policy environment, organization and delivery of health services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It discusses present financing means, and future financing methods such as a proposed national health insurance program and user-changes as well as important strategic issues. It is for healthcare directors, planners and strategists and will be of interest to experts and international investors in health system reorganization.

"[This book is] the most authoritative assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of recent trends toward the commercialization of health care," says Robert Pear of The New York Times. This major study by the Institute of Medicine examines virtually all aspects of for-profit health care in the United States, including the quality and availability of health care, the cost of medical care, access to financial capital, implications for education and research, and the fiduciary role of the physician. In addition to the report, the book contains 15 papers by experts in the field of for-profit health care covering a broad range of topicsâ€"from trends in the growth of major investor-owned hospital companies to the ethical issues in for-profit health care. "The report makes a lasting contribution to the health policy literature." â€"Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

A collection of essays dealing with the health care system.

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. "The definitive social history of the medical profession in America....A monumental achievement."—H. Jack Geiger, M.D., New York Times Book Review

Privatization and the New Medical Pluralism is the first collection of its kind to explore the contemporary terrain of healthcare in Guatemala through reflective ethnography. This volume offers a nuanced portrait of the effects of healthcare privatization for indigenous Maya people, who have historically endured numerous disparities in health and healthcare access. The collection provides an updated understanding of medical pluralism, which concerns not only the tensions and exchanges between ethnomedicine and biomedicine that have historically shaped Maya people’s experiences of health, but also the multiple competing biomedical institutions that have emerged in a highly privatized, market-driven environment of care. The contributors examine the macro-structural and micro-level implications of the proliferation of non-governmental organizations, private fee-for-service clinics, and new pharmaceuticals against the backdrop of a deteriorating public health system. In this environment, health seekers encounter new challenges and opportunities, relationships between the public, private, and civil sectors transform, and new forms of inequality in access to healthcare abound. This volume connects these themes to critical studies of global and public health, exposing the strictures and apertures of healthcare privatization for marginalized populations in Guatemala.

The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”

Disobedience : doctor workers unite! / Howard Waitzkin -- Becoming employees : the deprofessionalization and emerging social class position of health professionals / Matt Anderson -- The degradation of medical labor and the meaning of quality in health care / Gordon Schiff and Sarah Winch -- The political economy of health reform / David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler -- The transformation of the medical industrial complex : financialization, the corporate sector, and monopoly capital / Matt Anderson and Robb Burlage -- The pharmaceutical industry in the context of contemporary capitalism / Joel Lexchin -- Obamacare : the neoliberal model comes home to roost in the United States, if we let it / Howard Waitzkin and Ida Hellander -- Austerity and health / Adam Gaffney and Carles Muntaner -- Imperialism's health component / Howard Waitzkin and Rebeca Jasso-Aguilar -- U.S. philanthrocapitalism and the global health agenda : the Rockefeller and Gates foundations, past and present / Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Judith Richter -- Resisting the imperial order and building an alternative future in medicine and public health / Rebeca Jasso-Aguilar and Howard Waitzkin -- The failure of Obamacare and a revision of the single payer proposal after a quarter century of struggle / Adam Gaffney, David Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler -- Overcoming pathological normalcy : mental health challenges in the coming transformation / Carl Ratner -- Confronting the social and environmental determinants of health / Carles Muntaner and Rob Wallace -- Conclusion : moving beyond capitalism for our health / Adam Gaffney and Howard Waitzkin