Obamacare, the Neoliberal Model, and the Social Movement for a Just and Accessible Health System

• In Event: 075 - Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. Co-Revolution: Bringing Anti-Systemic Movements Together

Abstract

The coming failure of Obamacare will become a moment of transformation in the United States. For that moment, the social movement for a just and accessible health system will need to address profound social changes that have emerged during the era of neoliberalism. These changes involve the social class position of health professionals and the increasingly oligopolistic and financialized character of the health insurance industry. Through a strange historical sequence, Colombia’s health reform of 1994 became a model for health reforms in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Officially this model of reform, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aims to improve access to services for the uninsured and underinsured, in collaboration with the private, for-profit insurance industry. International financial institutions and multinational insurance corporations have favored this neoliberal model, which facilitates the flow of public sector trust funds into private insurance corporations. An ideology favoring corporate activities in a marketplace justifies these reforms through unproven claims about the efficiency of the private sector and enhanced quality of care under principles of competition and business management. The ACA maintains this historical continuity by dealing with health care as a commodity, rather than a fundamental human right to be guaranteed according to principles of social solidarity. As neoliberalism draws to a close and as Obamacare fails, the social movement aiming to achieve health care as a right will have an opportunity to confront contradictions in a weakened capitalist state and economic system.

Authors

• Howard Waitzkin, University of New Mexico

• Ida Hellander, Physicians for a National Health Program