• Trade in health services

Trade in health services

The paper discusses the effects that globalisation and privatisation may have on public health care systems. Threats to public health care include:

• the WTO provides two kinds of threat to health services. The first is the potential threat of GATS, which could force more privatisation in future. The second is the effect of TRIPS in supporting pharmaceutical profits at the expense of health needs
• the World Bank has a major impact on privatisation of healthcare services through its projects, which often have greater privatisation as a stated objective. Other parts of the World Bank also support privatisation: the direct investment activities of the IFC, and the investment guarantees of MIGA. Other international organizations such as the WHO and OECD also influence privatisation
• the various regional trade zones of the world have rules which may facilitate privatisation: healthcare policy changes in Alberta Canada, for example, could become a 'one-way street towards privatisation of the health sector' because of NAFTA. Procurement rules can also affect the introduction of private capital into public services
• government decisions to introduce healthcare privatisation have been and are being made in a number of developed and developing countries. These include service provision and also privatised insurance schemes like HMOs
• the marketing activities of MNCs themselves are central to the processes of privatisation and globalisation

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