The government’s legislative overhaul of New Zealand’s health system, passed this month, makes “timely access to quality healthcare” a core statutory purpose.

The Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Act removes previous provisions that focused on engaging with and meeting the needs of Māori and places a stronger emphasis on health targets and the outsourcing of care to private providers.

Behind this new instruction to Health New Zealand to work with private healthcare providers lies the reality that private-equity owned corporations are already playing an ever-increasing role in the healthcare system.

For example, an estimated quarter of general practices are now owned by large corporates such as Tāmaki Health and Green Cross Health.

Community laboratory testing is dominated by private services, with one corporate alone, Awanui, accounting for about three quarters of community testing. Similarly, about a fifth of dental services are owned by corporates.

In healthcare, as elsewhere, the form of ownership matters a great deal.

Private equity corporations use capital from institutional investors and from wealthy individual investors, along with high levels of debt, to buy healthcare services.

There are implications of increased corporate ownership for both access to and quality of healthcare........

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