Going Public: The Unmaking and Remaking of Universal Healthcare (Elements in Global Development Studies) by Ramya Kumar

This Element highlights the pivotal role of corporate players in universal health coverage ideologies and implementation, and critically examines social innovation-driven approaches to expanding primary care in low-income settings. It first traces 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 then juxtaposes three social innovations 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.