Going Public: Corporatizing Universal Health Amid Shifting Global Configurations, with Ramya Kumar and Anne-Emanuelle Birn

This seminar will explore the pivotal role of corporate players in universal health coverage ideologies and implementation, and critically examine social innovation-driven approaches to expanding primary care in low-income settings. It will first trace the evolving meanings of universal health/healthcare in global health politics and policy, analysing their close, often hidden, intertwining with corporate interests and exigencies. It will then juxtapose three ‘social innovations’ in health targeting niche ‘markets’ for lower-cost services in the Majority World, against three present-day examples of publicly financed and delivered primary healthcare (PHC), demonstrating what corporatization does to PHC, within deeply entrenched colonial-capitalist structures and discourses that normalize inferior care, private profit, and dispossession of peoples. The Seminar will end by drawing attention to the ongoing and accelerated expansion of private finance and philanthrocapitalist models in global health and their implications for healthcare access in the Majority World.

Learn more and register for the event here: Going Public: Corporatizing Universal Health Amid Shifting Global Configurations, with Ramya Kumar and Anne-Emanuelle Birn