1. Global strategies
  2. Extending health insurance coverage

Extending health insurance coverage

  • Creating universal health insurance

Context

Where the bulk of the labour force is already employed, government policies that extend insurance coverage to the rest of the population – including the self-employed, the elderly and the poor – remove the inequities inherent in multi-tiered systems of health financing and expand the content of the universally available package of care.

Implementation

Whilst most high-income countries have provided for at least a basic comprehensive health insurance, only a few middle-income countries have had the combination of adequate financial resources, political resolve and administrative capacity to achieve universal insurance coverage. Korea's bold initiative to create a national health insurance system from scratch between 1978 and 1989 and Costa Rica's efforts in the 1980s to universalize a system that had previously covered only the industrial labour force show that this is a difficult but achievable goal.

Claim

When insurance coverage becomes universal, subsidies actually end up targeting the poor and are thus progressive.

Broader

Insuring health
Presentable

Facilitates

Facilitated by

Value

Health
Yet to rate

SDG

Sustainable Development Goal #3: Good Health and Well-being

Metadata

Database
Global strategies
Type
(D) Detailed strategies
Subject
  • Commerce » Insurance
  • Health care » Health
  • Content quality
    Presentable
     Presentable
    Language
    English
    Last update
    Nov 11, 2022