Public and private sector interactions: an economic perspective.
The debate about the public-private mix for health care has been dominated by rhetoric and the failure to evaluate the characteristics of the outcomes of public and private health care systems and to relate these to policy targets. After a brief analysis of the competing, liberal (conservative) and collectivist (socialist), objectives, the nature of the private health care sector in Britain is described and it is shown that growth has faltered due to cost containment problems. This outcome is the product of characteristics of the private health care system, paralleled precisely in the NHS: asymmetry information, monopoly power, moral hazard and third party pays. The final section discusses briefly some remedies for the inefficient and inequitable outcomes which are seen in all health care markets and it is argued that competition within public and private health care systems may enable each system type to achieve its own particular objectives more efficiently.
D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D004465:Economic Competition; D004470:Economics, Medical; D005060:Europe; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000639:trends; D006291:Health Policy; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement / Q000191:economics; D008389:Marketing of Health Services; D013222:State Medicine / Q000191:economics; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States