Private Hospital Groups in Spain: Business Concentration and Penetration in Public Health

This study analyses central aspects of the financialisation of the hospital sector in Spain, such as the expansion of the leading companies and the centralisation of capital in large financial venture-capital groups, which has meant the decline of historical independent hospitals. This process is similar to those analysed in other countries in a context of financial globalisation, and the penetration of venture capital funds in the health sector, which has produced a mobilisation of vested interests. In the case of Spain, there have been some specific determining factors such as the maintenance of privileged treatment for many public employees, decentralised heath care in the hands of regional governments since the 1980s and a public health system that allowed special agreements with private hospitals from its implementation in 1986.