Gestation and implementation of neoliberal policies in health

An approximation to de-empowerment of life. Chile 1973-1989

Abstract

On September 11th, 1973, the military dictatorship starts in Chile until the first months of 1990. Considering that historical process, our work analyzes the transformation of the Chilean Health System. Through the analysis of Augusto Pinochet’s presidential speeches, the social history in Chile during 1973-1989 is addressed with the purpose of understanding from the health public policies, the restructuration of the State and the assumption of the neoliberal economic practices in the sanitary field. Our work concludes that the military intervention in 1973 constituted a radical exercise of the de-empowerment of collective care of life, not only for the restructuration-metamorphosis that the relation State-People experienced, by means of social policies, but due to the immediate consequences on the human rights vulnerability and the consolidation of a system of sanitary social protection mediated for the payment capacity of the consumers.