The near-universal dominance of public and not-for-profit hospitals
Inpatient health care is dominated by the public sector in most countries. In the few where this isn’t the case, not-for-profits tend to dominate. Out of 32 OECD+ countries, the only exception to this rule is Colombia. Even the US has far more beds in hospitals classed as not-for-profit entities than it does in its for-profit sector.
In Europe, the public sector is especially dominant. The only European countries where this isn’t the case are the Netherlands and Belgium. In the Netherlands, not-for-profits are totally dominant, since the country doesn’t really have much in the way of a public or for-profit hospital presence.
But every other European country has significantly more public hospital capacity than either for-profit or not-for-profit capacity. Germany is another country that is slightly unusual in that its public sector capacity is only 27% greater than its for-profit capacity (and 43% greater than its not-for-profit capacity); in other European countries, public sector capacity tends to be several times larger.
The above graph shows total bed capacity in 2021, so doesn’t tell us which countries have the most capacity relative to their population. To understand this, see below the graph, which is the same except all of the figures are scaled by the population of their respective countries.
South Korea is by far the most over-bedded country in the world – with 12.77 beds per 1,000 residents overall – the vast majority of which are in the not-for-profit sector. Even Germany – with 7.76 beds per 1,000 residents – doesn’t even come close to this.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Martin De Benito Gellner or call 0207 183 3779.
