Private Health Insurance in France : Marketization Embraced?

Summary First lines: Over the last twenty years, many studies have reported the growing use of market-based instruments for the delivery of health services in Europe. Though still largely funded by the public purse, the general narrative that emerges is that European healthcare systems face a creeping tendency towards the integration of competition, price mechanisms, exit options, agencification or more specific tools (see for examples Paton, 1998, Neby, 2015). Scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to distinguishing this process of marketization from privatization (Hansen and Lindholst, 2016). Put simply, the former does not necessarily equate to, nor does it entail, the later. While marketization can occur without significant shifts in terms of the overall share of public spending, privatization designates an increased level of provision led by private providers — conversely, these providers may resemble former public actors more closely than market operators. Stated differently, there can be marketization without privatization, and vice versa. However, research also suggests that marketization in health policy has often been paralleled by privatization, even though contrasting paths have been followed from one country to another (Maarse, 2006).