Opinion: Why is the U.S. trying to export its flawed health-care policies around the world?
Source: Washington Post
Opinion: Why is the U.S. trying to export its flawed health-care policies around the world?
By Rebecca Riddell
January 10, 2022 at 1:49 p.m. EST
Rebecca Riddell co-directs the Human Rights and Privatization Project at New York University School of Law.
“That’s the only time you’ve received free health care? How in the world have they normalized that?” a Kenyan colleague asked after hearing that my coronavirus vaccine was the only instance in which I, an American, had ever received free public health care. We were months into a research project on the U.S.-backed growth of the for-profit private health sector in Kenya. The irony was not lost on us.
The United States famously spends more per capita on health care than any other country, even though the system performs far worse than that of many peer countries. Access is highly unequal, and sky-high prices push millions into poverty and discourage others from seeking care altogether. This heavily privatized system is indisputably excellent at one thing: generating profits. And powerful vested interests have blocked serious reforms for nearly a century.
Yet the U.S. government is pushing private health care around the world — including in countries that already have robust public health-care systems, such as Kenya.
In 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development adopted a new private-sector engagement policy — a “call to action” to “embrace market-based approaches.” It calls for “aggressive deployment of the full breadth of USAID’s financial and nonfinancial resources” to incentivize private actors.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/10/usaid-private-health-systems-kenya/
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