Patients, Politics, and Power: Government Failure and the Politicization of U.K. Health Care

Posted: 11 Aug 2009

Date Written: October 2008

Abstract

This article examines the consequences of the politicization of health care in the United Kingdom following the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. The NHS is founded on the principle of universal access to health care free at the point of use but in reality charges exist for some services and other services are rationed. Not to charge and/or ration would create a common-pool resource with no means of conserving scarce resources. Taking rationing decisions in the political realm means that the values and priorities of individual patients are marginalized and the preferences of powerful organized groups able to capture the political process dominate. The key lesson for international health care reform is that the politicization of health care via the NHS has not led to the realization of egalitarian ends but rather has empowered vested and organized interests at the expense of individual patients.

Keywords: common-pool resource, government failure, health care, power, producer interests, public choice, special interests

Suggested Citation

Meadowcroft, John, Patients, Politics, and Power: Government Failure and the Politicization of U.K. Health Care (October 2008). Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Vol. 33, Issue 5, pp. 427-444, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1447179 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhn022

John Meadowcroft (Contact Author)

King’s College London ( email )

Strand
London, England WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

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