The Trojan Horse: the Growth of Commercial Sponsorship
Philips, Deborah, and Garry Whannel. "Safe in Their Hands? Health and the Market." The Trojan Horse: The Growth of Commercial Sponsorship. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. 185–220. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 28 Sep. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781472545145.ch-008>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 28 September 2021, 22:55 UTC. Copyright © 2013 Deborah Philips and Garry Whannel 2013. You may share this work for non- commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 8 Safe in Their Hands? Health and the Market The public provision of health care constitutes a large percentage of the public spending budget of any major Western country. The establishment of the National Health Service in 1946 was rooted in the core principle of a comprehensive health service free at point of use, a principle that, broadly, still remains intact, despite growing colonization by the private sector. The cost of health provision is inevitably a pressure point in government expenditure, as resources are finite and the needs of health care are extensive. The growth of medical technology, expanded range of drug-based treatment, and rising life expectancy all push costs upwards. The National Health Service still constitutes, compared to other systems in the world, a remarkably efficient means of fulfilling health services delivery, with a high level of quality. In the United States, the enormous sums spent on health by the state and by individuals paying for insurance, combined with the lack of a proper publicly owned health system, has generated a large and profitable private sector.
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