Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

Summer 6-3-2025

Keywords

COVID-19, healthcare privatization, public health, political economy, path dependence, healthcare systems, health policy, critical juncture, health equity

Abstract

This paper examines whether the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated healthcare privatization in high- and medium-GDP countries. Drawing on political economy theories of path dependence and privatization, we analyze changes in public and private healthcare expenditures in eight countries: Canada, Chile, Denmark, Georgia, Luxembourg, Norway, the Philippines, and South Korea—comparing data from 2019 and 2022. Using World Bank indicators on healthcare financing, GDP, aging populations, and food insecurity, we find that although healthcare expenditures generally increased during the pandemic, this increase was primarily in public, not private, spending. Case studies of Georgia and South Korea reveal that local economic and demographic pressures, such as food insecurity and population aging, influenced healthcare financing patterns, but did not result in structural shifts toward privatization. Our findings suggest that while the pandemic placed extraordinary strain on healthcare systems, it did not trigger a widespread move toward private healthcare in the countries studied. Instead, we observe limited evidence of de-privatization in some higher-income cases. These findings challenge claims that crises necessarily accelerate market-based healthcare reforms and point to the need for further research with larger samples and longer-term data to evaluate post-pandemic policy trajectories globally.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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