This article focuses on the factors that have promoted transferring the responsibility of providing healthcare from the government to market forces. This has allowed the private sector to grow in Saudi Arabia. It also discusses other factors that contributed to policy measures that enabled this shift. It shows the Saudi way of changing the paradigm from welfare to market model.
This is underpinned by the belief that private health care providers can maintain equity and social justice if the government plays its stewardship role in price setting, providing subsidies, equitable distribution of services and ensuring easy access to all groups of users irrespective of their social and economic status.