| This historical case study examines the development of Ontario's community medical laboratory services from 1968 to 2006. This study found that to adequately account for the broad shifts in government medical laboratory policy towards private capital accumulation over collective needs it is necessary to take account of the changing balance of class power as a result of capital's strategy to expand world capital markets and integrate production globally. Particular attention is paid to how the dominant sectoral ideology, biomedicine, interacts with other forces to reinforce individualism, structures of authority and creation of needs that support the dominant power relations and facilitate capital accumulation. This study challenges the assertion that increasing private sector involvement in health care is the solution to many of the system's problems. Rather it argues that for-profit delivery of community laboratory services increases cost, decreases system efficiency and undermines universal public health insurance. |
