[Comment] Offline: Watching the watchers (part 2)

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Source: The Lancet

Original: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)02510-3/fullt...

Published: 2025-12-13

The main threat to health systems, according to the Global Health Watch 7 report, is privatization, financialization and corporatization, which have accelerated in recent decades, especially in countries with developed economies. Privatization means the transfer of public health assets to the private sector and the emergence of public-private partnerships, which leads to a reduction in public resources and forces people to seek private health care. Financialization represents the growing role of markets in healthcare and the transformation of healthcare systems into tradable assets. This trend causes chronic underfunding of public services and deterioration of the availability and quality of health care. Privatization and commercialization can lead to inequalities in access to health care and threaten the principles of universal access. The report points out that these processes have a negative impact on public health and require attention when creating health policies. The article does not provide any statistics or specific numbers.