The Open Method of Coordination on health care after the Lisbon Strategy II: Towards a neoliberal framing?

Abstract

This paper undertakes a content analysis of the discourse on the Open Method of Coordination on health care (OMC/HC) in order to show how equity and solidarity are increasingly linked to optimisation and, as such, how neoliberalism increasingly frames health care. Some of the side-effects of this reframing for politics are highlighted: legitimating and extending European Union governance, reducing the space for oppositional formations and limited citizenship. The analysis begins by interrogating the broader context of the Lisbon Strategy II, after which the techniques of the OMC/HC and its substantive outputs are analysed.