Health policy in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile

Juan Cruz Ferre

Chapter 6 in The Political Economy of Welfare in Latin America, 2026, pp 173-218 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The analysis of the health sector reveals that policy legacies loom large on policy outcomes. Elected officials avoided conflict with the main non-public insurance provider. In Uruguay, in a favorable context for progressive reforms outlined in the previous chapters, a structural reform significantly reduced inequities across sectors, but it also salvaged the private, non-profit sector from severe financial straits. Health policy in Argentina was marked by ad hoc programs and no significant reform. In Chile, in contrast, the private health insurance companies (ISAPREs) that dominate the private health market exerted great influence on the policy reform. Despite the differences, a common thread across the three cases is the growth of the private sector. Furthermore, in the three countries, a newly created mechanism allowed for public or social security funds to be rerouted to the private sector, a process the author refers to as ‘shunting’.

Keywords: Uruguay; Argentina; Chile; Policy legacies; Health policy; Health reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035371334
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035371341.00011 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:24939_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().