Health policies in Chile (2000-2018): trajectory and conditioning factors

Abstract

In the 1980s, during the military dictatorship, Chile was a forerunner in Latin America in radical health system reform, expanding the private sector's participation in health insurance and services provision and influencing reforms in other countries of the region. The article analyzes health policies in Chile from 2000 to 2018, in the context of four democratic government administrations, considering continuities and changes in the policies' development and their conditioning factors. The analytical reference drew on contributions from historical institutionalism. Literature and document searches were performed, besides semi-structured interviews with national policymakers from the period under study. Analysis of the trajectory of health policies in Chile during the democratic period revealed continuities and changes in the agendas and strategies adopted by governments with different political positions. Incremental reforms throughout this period produced progress and improvements in health services access and provision. However, reform proposals to alter the health system's public-private arrangement encountered resistance, and the dual and segmented structure shaped in the 1980s was maintained, with strong private participation. Historical-structural, institutional, and political conditioning factors in State-market relations and the health system's configuration under the dictatorship hindered comprehensive changes in public-private relations in health, producing an example of path dependence and corporate interests' power in the health sector.