Book contents
- The Political Economy of Health and Healthcare
- The Political Economy of Health and Healthcare
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Part I Political Incentives in Healthcare Systems
- Part II The Political Contexts of Healthcare Policies
- Part III Political Institutions and Health
- 4 Constitutional Health System Design
- 5 Democracy and the Patient Citizen
- 6 Theory of Political Markets in Healthcare
- 7 Ideology and Healthcare
- Part IV Political Allocation in Healthcare
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Constitutional Health System Design
from Part III - Political Institutions and Health
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2020
- The Political Economy of Health and Healthcare
- The Political Economy of Health and Healthcare
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Part I Political Incentives in Healthcare Systems
- Part II The Political Contexts of Healthcare Policies
- Part III Political Institutions and Health
- 4 Constitutional Health System Design
- 5 Democracy and the Patient Citizen
- 6 Theory of Political Markets in Healthcare
- 7 Ideology and Healthcare
- Part IV Political Allocation in Healthcare
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Health systems are part of a wider macro-level design establishing the principles and ‘rules of the game’ a society should be guided by. Such choices include principles that constrain policy choices to respect for human and economics rights. Such choices, in turn, influence the behaviour and expectations of the patient citizen (PC). The morphology of a health system is determined by so-called first-level choices,1 representaives of the PC make, in constitutional commissions and in Parliament. Among those first-level choices, one should highlight the delineation of how political power is shared horizontally (between the executive, judiciary and legislative branches of government). In making such first-level choices, countries are deemed to decide whether healthcare is regulated as a human right. Specifically, the right to the highest attainable standard of health which was included in the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) back in 1946. However, the way this right to health is implemented and prioritised differs across countries, and we still know little about how constitutions, which define the basic institutions of a country, influence healthcare activity alongside the PC’s access to health services.
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- Information
- The Political Economy of Health and HealthcareThe Rise of the Patient Citizen, pp. 77 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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