Issues in the Political Economy of Health Care

Book excerpt: 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.