OBJECTIVES: The potential role of private health care providers and privatization has been under heavy discussion in many countries. In the Hungarian health care, there was a strong governmental intervention in 2012-2013 and therefore most of the Hungarian hospitals became the property of the government. The aim of the study is to analyze the market share of for-profit private sector from the public health insurance expenditures on medical services. METHODS: Data were derived from the nationwide administrative dataset of the National Health Insurance Fund Administration (OEP), the only health care financing agency in Hungary, covering the period 2010-2014. The analysis includes the medical provisions (primary care, health visitors, dental care, out- and inpatient care, home care, kidney dialysis, CT-MRI). We calculated the health insurance reimbursement according to the following categories of health care providers’ ownership status: local authorities, central government, for-profit companies and non-profit providers. RESULTS: In 2010 as much as 31.7 %  of total expenditure for medical services went to for-profit private providers, 41.7 % to local authorities, 23.7 % to central government and 2.9 % to nonprofit sector. For 2014, the market share of private for-profit health care providers decreased to 24.3 %, the local authorities had 4.7 %, the central government 69.2 % and the non-profit sector 1.8 % market share. We found the largest decrease of private for-profit health care providers in acute (from 17.1 % in 2010 to 1.2 in 2014) and chronic care (from 22.7 % in 2010 to 6.1 % in 2014). CONCLUSIONS: In line with the health policy objectives between 2010-2014, we found a significant decrease of private for-profit companies from health insurance financing. Their market share decreased from 31.7 % (2010) to 24.3 % (2014). This decrease was attributed to the “nationalization” of acute and chronic care hospitals.