Market reforms in the French healthcare system: between regulation and yardstick competition

IMPACT

Responding to New Public Management reforms, the French healthcare system adapted by creating a hybrid model. This paper details those reforms, their hybridity, and their applicability in other contexts.

ABSTRACT

Under the impetus of New Public Management (NPM) reforms, a fragile European healthcare union has slowly emerged and commonalities in patients’ rights have appeared across the EU. In the case of France, cost-containment measures that traditionally consisted of price controls and a reduction in benefits have had a limited impact on the growth of health expenditures. With increasing budget deficits, France implemented a number of so-called ‘market reforms’ focused almost entirely on the supply side. France’s unique implementation included a labyrinth of competing values, interference of multiple stakeholders, fragmentation of goals, difficulties in reconciling market incentives, and multiple regulatory constraints. This paper examines the context of the French healthcare sector and its differences from Anglo Saxon healthcare systems. The applicability of the French ‘hybrid’ model to other contexts is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Administrative reform
• health care
• public–private partnership

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).