Abstract:
The aim was to conduct a literature review on health systems and comparative studies of health policies and systems to identify the leading contributions to the analysis of privatization, especially the role of health maintenance organizations and health insurance companies in national health systems in Latin America. The review focused on analyzing the adequacy of theoretical and methodological perspectives or proposals and their indicators to measure the private health sector’s participation and interaction with national health systems. We thus seek to problematize the adequacy, limits, and potentialities of such perspectives for investigating the privatization processes in Latin American health systems. The comparative analysis of some specific elements such as health expenditures, installed capacity, and population covered by health plans and health insurance allowed us to identify contradictions in the systems regarding public-private relations, as well as to question the use of traditional classifications for defining various health systems in the region. Our challenge was to break with linear, non-contradictory explanations for analyzing health systems. This perspective requires questioning categories and typologies that have been developed and used repeatedly in order to discuss and rethink to move forward with a more rigorous understanding of our realities, as well as to encourage new debates and explanations.
Keywords:
Privatization; Health Maintenance Organizations; Health Systems; Health Policy; Latin America