Belmartino S, Bloch C. La medicina prepaga en Argentina: su desarrollo desde los años sesenta. [Prepaid medicine in Argentina : its development since the 1960s.] Cuadernos Médicos Sociales [Medical Social Notebooks] ( Rosario , Argentina ) 1993 July; 64:5-29.

Objectives: To analyze the development of prepaid medicine in Argentina since the 1960s.

Methodology: Documentary analysis: historical, analytical, and interpretive.

Results: In the majority of cases, prepaid medicine in Argentina arose in the form of private companies organized by physicians.

These private systems based on financing future instances of illness showed significant growth during the 1960s. In this period, the state began to concern itself with, and to regulate, this activity. Medical associations also viewed with concern the expansion of these enterprises that possessed clear business interests. As a defensive measure against such commercial development, the medical associations began to organize their own prepayment systems.

The authors analyze the development of these systems of financing healthcare through the words of the parties themselves and through study of regulatory legislation and secondary data. These analyses clarify the role of prepaid medicine within the context of health sector reform in Argentina .

Conclusions: Prepaid medicine began to play an important role in Argentina during the 1960s. This earlier history provided a context for the later conversion of prepaid systems, during the 1990s, into major participants in the process of systemic reform.

Copyright 2007 University of New Mexico