Q&A: Dr. Ahmed Al-Rashid on Saudi’s Vision 2030 Health Pivot
The deputy health minister on privatization sequencing, where the hardest trade-offs sit, and the part of the plan he'd change if he could.
MA Health: What’s going faster than you expected? What’s going slower?
Dr. Al-Rashid: Corporatization of the public hospital clusters is ahead of schedule. The decoupling of payer and provider function has been much slower, politically and operationally. We underestimated how embedded the single-payer culture was in day-to-day operating practice.
MA Health: What’s the most misunderstood part of the program abroad?
Dr. Al-Rashid: That this is a privatization. It isn’t. The state retains ownership of the clusters. What we’re privatizing is the management model — introducing competition on outcomes while keeping universal access. Confusing those two things is the source of most outside commentary that gets us wrong.
