Constructing health consumers: Private health insurance discourses in Australia and the United Kingdom

The significant transformations of the healthcare services sector over the past three decades have included increased reliance on the private provision of healthcare services, mediated through private health insurance. In countries such as Australia and the UK, private health insurance is promoted as increasing choice for individuals and easing the burden on the public system. While these claims, the policy contexts and individuals’ decision-making processes have attracted some sociological attention, little has been paid to the role of private insurers themselves. In this article we present a comparative analysis of the discourses on the websites of private health insurers in Australia and the UK. Our analysis highlights adoption by private health insurers of neo-liberal discourses of choice and individual responsibility, partnership and healthy lifestyles. In these respects, similarities between the discourses employed in the two national contexts override differences that might be expected due to contrasting healthcare traditions and contexts.