Financing health services for pensioners in Argentina: a salutary tale

In: International journal of social welfare, Band 12, Heft 1, S. 24-30

Abstract

The article examines the problems facing a programme to finance health care for pensioners in Argentina, known as PAMI. The programme is accumulating large deficits and many of its services are of doubtful quality. PAMI's problems and its resistance to reforms are put in the wider context of Argentina's liberalised health‐care system, neo‐liberal adjustment and flawed governance. The Argentine experience has relevance for other developing countries with weak state regulatory capacity, and points to the dangers of delegating health financing of older people to the private sector.