Private Sector and Privatisation in the Healthcare Serivices A Review Paper for the ICSSR-ICMR Joint Panel on Health

In the 1980s, the data and analysis on the private sector and privatisation in the healthcare were scanty. A paper commissioned by the ICMR-ICSSR Joint panel on Health in 1989 evolved into a monograph on the subject. The scope expanded as authors went into the history of the evolution of modern healthcare system, how in the developed capitalist world - except the USA - the market in healthcare was brought under control with the Post IIWW evolution of Welfare States. The USA opted for a highly regulated market. It contrast that with the situation in India where the private sector dominance is compounded by the unregulated market in the healthcare. In the process, the paper tries to make estimation of the healthcare infrastructure facilities and humanpower just before India embraced the neo-liberal path of capitalist development in 1991.