Enter the market: competition, regulation and hospital funding in Australia

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Abstract
Financial provision for health care (and particularly hospital-based services) in Australia during the past half century have been characterised by a continuous tension between the public and private sectors. Successive governments have favoured alternate sectors, building up or dismantling one relative to the other. The latest trend has been to imitate developments overseas and introduce 'market forces' into the public sector in the form of competition, privatisation and new forms of monitoring, funding and regulation. Despite prolific dis cussion about these changes, there has been little recognition that the ensuing impact will also be shaped by simultaneous (and perhaps, unforeseen) developments in the health care sector—such as the entry of foreign 'hospital chain' corporations into Australia, the internationalisation of health care markets, and the globalisation of finance capital. This article seeks to clarify the nature of these developments, and addresses some of the implications of this unique coalescence of events.