PROFIT® and public-private partnerships

Don’t be fooled by the clever language used to describe public-private-partnerships. P3s represent a form of health care privatization by stealth, and the only people who benefit from these so-called “partnerships” are the corporate CEOs and shareholders who get to line their pockets with public money – and lots of it.
In the past, governments relied on the private sector to build public health care infrastructure (such as hospitals), but the buildings were still owned and operated by the public.

P3s are very different: a for-profit corporation (or a consortium of such corporations) finances, designs, builds, owns, and operates a hospital and delivers health care services on behalf of the government. The hospital is theirs, typically for a period of 30 to 60 years. This almost always leads to dramatically higher costs, delays, and a loss of public accountability.

PROFIT® and P3s are not the cure for the Canadian health care system.

Resources:

	Histoires d’horreur (French) La Presse | Ariane Krol | December 1, 2006
	Est-ce que ça coûte moins cher ? (French) La Presse | Ariane Krol | December 1, 2006
	Les fonctionnaires à l’école des PPP (French) La Presse | Ariane Krol | December 1, 2006
	Éléphants blancs à l’horizon (French) La Presse | Ariane Krol | December 1, 2006
	Le meilleur des PPP (French) La Presse | Ariane Krol | December 1, 2006
	The man who treats public services as a pension fund for fat cats The Guardian | George Montbiot | May 9, 2006
	Public-Private Partnerships (P3s): Private Gain, Public Cost (PDF) Medicare works! | National Union of Public and General Employees | 2006
	Funding Hospital Infrastructure: Why P3s Don’t Work, and What Will (PDF) Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Lewis Auerbach, Arthur Donner, Douglas D. Peters, Monica Townson & Armine Yalnizyan | November 2003