The General Agreement on Trade in Services: Implications for health policymakers - To what extent does the GATS allow governments to regulate health services providers?

Health Affairs

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 137-145

  Belsky, Leah ^a   Lie, Reidar ^a   Mattoo, Aaditya ^b   Emanuel, Ezekiel J ^c   Sreenivasan, Gopal ^d  

^a NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH   (United States)

^b WORLD BANK   (United States)

^c NIH Department of Clinical Bioethics

^d UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEVELOPING COUNTRY; GOVERNMENT; HEALTH CARE DELIVERY; HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT; HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL; HEALTH CARE POLICY; HEALTH CARE SYSTEM; HEALTH INSURANCE; HOSPITAL CARE; HOSPITAL SERVICE; POLITICAL SYSTEM; PRIVATE PRACTICE; PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE; REVIEW; TELECOMMUNICATION; TRADE UNION; UNITED STATES;

HEALTH POLICY; HEALTH SERVICES; HUMANS; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; POLICY MAKING;

EID: 2442484765     PISSN: 02782715     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.23.3.137     Document Type: Review

References (21)

1. See, for example, S. Sinclair, GATS: How the WTO's: New "Services" Negotiations Threaten Democracy (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2000); M. Sanger, Reckless Abandon: Canada, the GATS, and the Future of Health Care (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2001); A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "Rewriting the Regulations: How the World Trade Organisation Could Accelerate Privatisation in Health-Care Systems," Lancet 356, no. 9246 (2000): 1995-2000; and A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "The Public Health Implications of World Trade Negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services and Public Services," Lancet 362, no. 9389 (2003): 1072-1075.
2. See, for example, S. Sinclair, GATS: How the WTO's: New "Services" Negotiations Threaten Democracy (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2000); M. Sanger, Reckless Abandon: Canada, the GATS, and the Future of Health Care (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2001); A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "Rewriting the Regulations: How the World Trade Organisation Could Accelerate Privatisation in Health-Care Systems," Lancet 356, no. 9246 (2000): 1995-2000; and A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "The Public Health Implications of World Trade Negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services and Public Services," Lancet 362, no. 9389 (2003): 1072-1075.
3. See, for example, S. Sinclair, GATS: How the WTO's: New "Services" Negotiations Threaten Democracy (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2000); M. Sanger, Reckless Abandon: Canada, the GATS, and the Future of Health Care (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2001); A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "Rewriting the Regulations: How the World Trade Organisation Could Accelerate Privatisation in Health-Care Systems," Lancet 356, no. 9246 (2000): 1995-2000; and A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "The Public Health Implications of World Trade Negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services and Public Services," Lancet 362, no. 9389 (2003): 1072-1075.
4. See, for example, S. Sinclair, GATS: How the WTO's: New "Services" Negotiations Threaten Democracy (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2000); M. Sanger, Reckless Abandon: Canada, the GATS, and the Future of Health Care (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2001); A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "Rewriting the Regulations: How the World Trade Organisation Could Accelerate Privatisation in Health-Care Systems," Lancet 356, no. 9246 (2000): 1995-2000; and A.M. Pollock and D. Price, "The Public Health Implications of World Trade Negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services and Public Services," Lancet 362, no. 9389 (2003): 1072-1075.
5. For the text of the GATS, see www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/26- gats_01_e.htm (11 March 2004).
6. GATS, Articles II and III.
7. R. Adlung and A. Carzaniga, "Health Services under the GATS," Bulletin of the World Health Organization 79, no. 4 (2001): 356.
8. WTO Council for Trade in Services, "Health and Social Services: Background Note by the Secretariat," 18 September 1998, Table 3, www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/w50.doc (11 March 2004.
9. Adlung and Carzaniga, "Health Services under the GATS," 356.
10. Ibid., 354.
11. See Sinclair, GATS; Sanger, Reckless Abandon; Pollock and Price, "Rewriting the Regulations"; and Pollock and Price, "The Public Health Implications."
12. See Sinclair, GATS; Sanger, Reckless Abandon; Pollock and Price, "Rewriting the Regulations"; and Pollock and Price, "The Public Health Implications."
13. See Sinclair, GATS; Sanger, Reckless Abandon; Pollock and Price, "Rewriting the Regulations"; and Pollock and Price, "The Public Health Implications."
14. See Sinclair, GATS; Sanger, Reckless Abandon; Pollock and Price, "Rewriting the Regulations"; and Pollock and Price, "The Public Health Implications."
15. M. Krajewski, "Public Services and the Scope of the GATS," May 2001, www.ciel.org/Publications/PublicServicesScope.pdf (11 March 2004). Compare WTO Council for Trade in Services, Health and Social Services, sec. 38.
16. A. Mattoo, "The GATS and Trade in Health Services" (Paper presented at the NIH Conference on Globalization, Justice, and Health, in Washington, D.C., 4 November 2003).
17. Pollock and Price, "Rewriting the Regulations," 1995.
18. R. Adlung, "Preliminary Comments on Pollock and Price" (Unpublished paper, WTO Trade in Services Division, 2003).
19. WTO Working Party on Domestic Regulation, "'Necessity Tests' in the WTO: Note by the Secretariat," 2 December 2000, docsonline.wto.org/ DDFDocuments/t/S/WPDR/W27.doc (11 March 2004).
20. D. Leebron, "Implementation of the Uruguay Round Results in the United States," in Implementing the Uruguay Round, ed. J. Jackson and A. Sykes (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1997).
21. For a list of the current U.S. commitments, see tsdb.wto.org/wto/Public. nsf/FSetPredefinedReport?OpenFrameSet (11 March 2004).