ABSTRACT
Public health care systems have become increasingly commodified in the past 15 years. National public health care systems have developed with their own specific histories and this often influences the effects of commodification. As a way of preparing the public health care sector for competition and marketisation, an initial reform is for public hospitals to become ‘corporatised’. Public hospitals have to operate according to business principles. This contributes to the commodification of health care, even if full privatisation does not take place (Sen, 2005; Leys, 2001). The private sector has entered public health care systems through several mechanisms. Services have been gradually contracted out to the private sector. The development of public – private partnerships to build and manage new hospitals has presented many governments with an apparent solution to short-term funding, although in the long term, the government will be paying the private sector through inflexible long-term contracts (Pollock, 2004). There is a growing presence of private sector companies operating in public health care systems as well as significant changes taking place in the related role of government (Lethbridge, 2005).
