Competition in the healthcare sector: a missing dimension

Excerpt

In a recent issue of this journal, [1] presented a management summary of the comprehensive and insightful report prepared by the expert panel on effective ways of investing in health (EXPH) entitled, competition among health care providers—investigating policy options in the European Union. As their backfoil, EXPH use the familiar tripolar model with a payor (potential) patients, and healthcare providers (p. 16). They also correctly emphasize that competition is a means to an end, i.e., to achieving a set of goals a country’s citizens agree upon, without however detailing them (p. 12). The objective of this editorial is to introduce the notion of competition for the position of the ‘payor pole’ and to link the institutional choice of the ‘payor pole’ to the contribution that competition in the healthcare sector may make to the achievement of a defined set of goals. …