Poland

Abstract

Abstract Background Research into the politics of health reforms usually looks at parties in a unidimensional way, in the classical left-right axis, where right parties are expected to marketize healthcare while left parties are expected to do the opposite. Populist Radical Right (PRR) parties do not neatly fit this unidimensional approach. The case of the Law and Justice party (PiS) in Poland is illustrative of the tenuous link between traditional neoliberal right-wing health policies and the PPR agenda. Methods We conducted a review of available primary sources (legal and policy documents) and secondary literature (academic, press, and think-tank publications). Resulting data was analysed thematically. Results Since its rise to power in 2015, PiS has departed from the previous center-right government's market-oriented healthcare policies. It retracted regulations aimed at commercialisation of public healthcare providers, introduced networks of hospitals to reduce internal market of providers and proposed the establishment of National Health Service (later abandoned). It continued the previous government's expansion of health coverage to universal by principle. In the 2019 election manifesto entitled “Polish Model of Welfare State” PiS explicitly states they “reject principles of neoliberalism”. Its most overtly right-wing stances were limited to strictly “cultural wars” context: reproductive health, sexual education, IVF reimbursement etc. Yet even in this instance the harshest proposals (such as stricter abortion laws) were not implemented. Conclusions PiS' health policies show that some PRR parties do not conform to a unidimensional left-right divide but rather combine left-wing redistributive policies with right-wing socially conservative stances. In many respects, the current government has enacted health policies that can be described as neo-Weberian and traditionally social-democratic.