Comunicação em evento científico
The Paradox of Portuguese Healthcare System: Economic Crisis and Institutional Choice
Maria Asensio (Asensio, M.); Tamara Popic (Popic, T.);
Título Evento
Annual Conference of ESPAnet, 1-3 Sept.
Ano (publicação definitiva)
2016
Língua
Inglês
País
Países Baixos (Holanda)
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Abstract/Resumo
This contributed paper (prepared within the context of the NORFACE HEALTHDOX Project on the “Paradox of Health State Futures”) analyzes policies of austerity in the Portuguese healthcare system in the historical context of the country's healthcare system development since the 1980s. In the context of the financial crisis, the system witnessed series of reforms imposed by the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, or the so-called "Troika", through the Memorandum of Understanding (2011). The fact that beside Greece, Portugal was the only other South European country that introduced a set of very specific austerity policies aimed on healthcare makes it an excellent case for the analysis of the impact of austerity on the healthcare system. The paper will draw some preliminary conclusions about the main trends of the healthcare reforms introduced the context of austerity and will situate these reforms in the context of a broader historical development of the Portuguese healthcare system since 1980s. It will also evaluate to which extent the NHS structure of the Portuguese healthcare system contributed to the containment of the crisis effects on the healthcare sector and to the implementation of austerity policies. The paper makes a two-fold argument: First, we argue that the pressures in Portugal are not all the same as in other Southern European countries, given the observable differences in their financial vulnerability; second, we use the Portuguese example to show that states can respond to financial crises in more than one way. Thus, the politics of austerity must be analyzed in a more fine-grained way that pays equal attention to differences in the financial vulnerabilities of the affected countries, but also to the role of political choice is responding to these pressures.
Agradecimentos/Acknowledgements
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Palavras-chave
saúde - crise - Portugal
Registos de financiamentos
Referência de financiamento Entidade Financiadora
462-13-011 NORFACE - FCT