Milei’s insurance revolution: Private policies and agencies to eradicate public services

[carride]

To analyze Milei’s still-abstract proposal, political scientist Oscar Oszlak suggests comparing it with global experience on the subject. “Nowhere have state services been massively replaced by private insurance,” he says. “The balance shows that, while in some specific areas the private sector can bring innovation or greater speed than states, in general what they tend to produce is social exclusion.”

“In pursuit of profit, private companies produce clear market segmentation, targeting the wealthy, the young or the healthy, widening social gaps,” explains Oszlak, an adjunct professor at the University of Buenos Aires, who has received an honorary doctorate from around 10 universities.

Cases with “some degree of success,” he details, “are those that, first, use mixed models, that is, public-private systems, and, second, are heavily regulated. When attempts were made to fully privatize essential services, failures were substantial.” Oszlak considers the idea of privatizing the courts “completely absurd.” And on prisons he notes: “If a prison is a private company, it has an incentive to maintain full occupancy. Even overcrowding, if possible. So it won’t be interested in rehabilitation policies for inmates, for example, or parole. Obviously, there the public goals and private profit motives conflict.”

Milei’s insurance revolution: Private policies and agencies to eradicate public services

The Argentine president wants private insurers to assume functions traditionally carried out by the state, from healthcare and pensions to security and justice

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