Government Discourse in the Context of Austerity-Driven Health Policy Reforms: Comparative Analysis of Portugal, Ireland and Greece

During the recent financial crisis, many European countries opted for austerity measures in healthcare by retrenching public healthcare spending and thus reducing the state's role in provision of healthcare services. These austerity-driven policy changes have often strengthened or even generated new inequalities in access to healthcare across social groups, thus having profound consequences for solidarity and equality in healthcare and welfare state as a whole. However, little is known about how governments have framed these unpopular welfare choices and in particular, how they have framed policy reforms that target specific social groups (e.g. health policies that abolish free access to primary care for specific income or age groups). The paper investigates the framing of these health policy reforms in the context of the recent financial crisis by asking the following questions: How have governments framed austerity-driven healthcare reforms in the context of recent financial crisis? Which arguments have they used to justify these measures? The paper relies upon qualitative analysis of government discourse in three countries that introduced extensive austerity-driven health reforms during the recent financial crisis: Portugal, Ireland and Greece. Data used in the paper are original and have been collected through text analysis of political and policy content of the government's parliamentary speeches on austerity-driven healthcare reforms in the three countries.