Since mid century the health arena has undergone successive upheavals -- from rapid growth and development stimulated by public policies to retrenchment with an attenuated role for government, with public policy turning to cost containment and advancing a market orientation in the midst of massive economic, social and political changes. Meanwhile, market failures in health care delivery burgeon with multibillion dollar acquisitions and megamergers and increases of the uninsured (Bond, F., and Weissman, R., The cost of mergers and acquisitions in the US health care sector. Int. J. Health Services 27(1):77-87:1997, p.77).
Market perspectives in health care have also contributed to discounting the public significance of public health while magnifying that of personal health care in the body politic, while economically, access to health care and to health protection for the community dwindles. As the delivery of personal health care becomes a function of the marketplace, imbalances are raised between community benefit and a thrust to profit and surpluses.
The market orientation has placed providers, consumers and the community at risk as massive changes have occurred in the midst of unwieldy demographics, increased concentration of wealth and economic dislocations including homelessness, environmental and genetic health hazards and reemergence of epidemics. In view of these circumstances, the drift of the delivery of personal healthcare apart from public health practice has weakened their capacities to effectively address prevention, the access to high quality care, health protection and safety of all community members.
Learning Objectives: Analyze the impact of medical care's market orientation on personal health care, on public health and on the relation between them
Keywords: Health Care Delivery, Public Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.