Restructuring of Health Care System and Public-Private Partnerships

In the last two decades, the public-private partnerships in health services have become more common, and they appear in different models of practice. The Government grants extended to private health services via these models have also been gradually increasing. Public-private partnerships are one of the prominent methods for marketization of health services by the state, and commodification of health care. This study, by focusing on public-private partnerships, analyzes restructuring of the health care system and the process of marketization in health care services. The purpose of the study is to set forth the changing and redefined forms of relations between the public sector and private sector through the case of health services. The basic proposition of the study is that from privatization to public-private partnerships, the whole marketization process in health services refers to a new process of capital accumulation. In this sense, it is argued that public-private partnerships are becoming the most important assurance for both the state and the capital.