This handbook provides a comprehensive and critical overview of the gamut of contemporary issues around health and healthcare from a political economy perspective. Its contributions present a unique challenge to prevailing economic accounts of health and healthcare, which narrowly focus on individual behaviour and market processes. Instead, the capacity of the human body to reach its full potential and the ability of society to prevent disease and cure illness are demonstrated to be shaped by a broader array of political economic processes. The material conditions in which societies produce, distribute, exchange, consume, and reproduce – and the operation of power relations therein – influence all elements of human health: from food consumption and workplace safety, to inequality, healthcare and housing, and even the biophysical conditions in which humans live. This volume explores these concerns across five sections. First, it introduces and critically engages with a variety of established and cutting-edge theoretical perspectives in political economy to conceptualise health and healthcare – from neoclassical and behavioural economics, to Marxist and feminist approaches. The next two sections extend these insights to evaluate the neoliberalisation of health and healthcare over the past 40 years, highlighting their individualisation and commodification by the capitalist state and powerful corporations. The fourth section examines the diverse manifestation of these dynamics across a range of geographical contexts. The volume concludes with a section devoted to outlining more progressive health and healthcare arrangements, which transcend the limitations of both neoliberalism and capitalism. This volume will be an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of political economy, health policy and politics, health economics, health geography, the sociology of health, and other health-related disciplines.

Originally published in 1984, this book attempted to fill a gap by providing a broad-ranging structural analysis of the health care sector and the political and economic forces which influence its shape and contents, both in the western world and developing countries. The contributors examine the relationships of capitalism to health care, in terms of its influence on the physical environment, the incidence of social diseases and the prevailing (20th Century) view of what constitutes health itself; and in terms of the consequences of the new medical industrial complex it has created, such as the declining provision of health care for the poor and disadvantaged and the growing power of the pharmaceutical industry.

This groundbreaking Handbook brings together the two timely subject matters of political economy of health and health care into one comprehensive book. Containing up-to-date discussions on these key topics, it provides an interdisciplinary approach and a better understanding of health policy making. Highlighting the key theoretical and empirical debates in academia and policy across a variety of scholarly groups, this Handbook shows the differing methods and principles applied while sharing the common goal of understanding the institutional mechanisms, constraints and determinants that influence decision-making. Split into six thematic parts, the expert contributors discuss the design of health care systems, political markets, financing and policy reforms, and healthcare during pandemics, as well as providing insightful lessons to be learnt for the future. Scholars and professionals interested in an in-depth state-of-the-art companion to the main issues under discussion of the effects of the design in our health systems, along with the constraints that they face, will find this Handbook an excellent resource.

Significant debate exists about the possible solutions for nearly all of the most important global health challenges and competing visions of the values that should underlie global health policies have emerged, ranging from an emphasis on cost effectiveness and resource constraints, to new calls for health and human rights, and social justice. T

Some goods and services are normally left to the market mechanism. Health care is often described as an exception to the rule. Society wants care to be allocated equitably; it wants the financial burden to be kept within bounds; it wants treatments to be both medically effective and economically efficient. These shared concerns lead to a demand for State intervention which this book seeks impartially to appraise and evaluate.

a Should be of interest to everyone working for a just and caring health system anywhere.a Barbara Ehrenreich"

Why, despite vast resources being expended on health and health care, is there still so much ill health and premature death? Why do massive inequalities in health, both within and between countries, remain? In this devastating critique, internationally renowned health economist Gavin Mooney places the responsibility for these problems firmly at the door of neoliberalism. Mooney analyses how power is exercised both in health-care systems and in society more generally. In doing so, it reveals how too many vested interests hinder efficient and equitable policies to promote healthy populations, while too little is done to address the social determinants of health. Instead, Mooney argues, health services and health policy more generally should be returned to the communities they serve. Taking in a broad range of international case studies - from the UK to the US, South Africa to Cuba - this provocative book places issues of power and politics in health care systems centre stage, making a compelling case for the need to re-evaluate how we approach health care globally.