The Week in Headlines
UHC Forward's Weekly Roundup of Headlines from Around the Globe
Governments around the world are engaging in serious political and technical discussions on how to expand health coverage. Still others are considering such reforms, but are struggling to navigate the legal, financial, and political frameworks of their countries to determine the best path towards universal health coverage (UHC).
Below is a list of UHC-related headlines from around the world for the week of February 25, 2013.
The Week in Headlines
UHC Forward's Weekly Roundup of Headlines from Around the Globe
Governments around the world are engaging in serious political and technical discussions on how to expand health coverage.
The Week in Headlines
UHC Forward's Weekly Roundup of Headlines from Around the Globe
Governments around the world are engaging in serious political and technical discussions on how to expand health coverage. Still others are considering such reforms, but are struggling to navigate the legal, financial, and political frameworks of their countries to determine the best path towards reform.
Below is a list of UHC-related headlines from around the world:
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Country News
Uganda
Health insurance can we solve the puzzle?: The Ugandan government has attempted to launch a compulsory health insurance scheme in the past. Following the Minister of Health Sarah Kataike Ndoboli's attempt to raise the contentious health insurance debate again.
An online debate about the UN General Assembly vote in favour of universal health coverage
This blog is cross-posted from Health Financing in Africa: Le Blog. Collection, editing, titling and introduction of this blogpost has been done by Emmanuel Ngabire, co-facilitator of the PBF Community of Practice.
**On December 12th, a resolution called “Global health and foreign policy” was voted at the United Nations. This declaration, whose main focus is universal health coverage (UHC), triggered a debate on the online discussion forum of the Performance-Based Financing Community of Practice. Most of the discussion focused on the usefulness of such resolutions. Several members are concerned about the possible negative impact in low-income countries.
UHC should be included in the post-2015 development agenda because it is popular - worldwide
A comment on the report of the global thematic consultation on health for the post-2015 development agenda
A strong reason for including Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as an overarching goal is that it is extremely popular. People like UHC and understand the simple idea that everyone should access the health services they need without suffering financial hardship. As a result, political leaders across the globe have been launching popular and effective UHC reforms. These reforms have delivered considerable health benefits to their populations and political benefits for their governments.
Recently, political pressure to deliver UHC has been evident at all income levels and in diverse political systems including: US, China, India, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa.
The Week in Headlines
UHC Forward's Weekly Roundup of Headlines from Around the Globe
Governments around the world are engaging in serious political and technical discussions on how to expand health coverage. Still others are considering such reforms, but are struggling to navigate the legal, financial, and political frameworks of their countries to determine the best path towards reform.
Below is a list of UHC-related headlines from around the world:
If you are viewing this on the web and would prefer to get it in your inbox every two weeks, register for the email edition.
General News
Paying for health and innovating for value in Myanmar: Management Sciences for Health President Dr. Jonathan Quick says, "Despite decades of military dictatorship, I was impressed with the passion, energy and vision for a better Myanmar.
Open HDD cleans up health systems
In November 2012, the Philippines Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) issued a press release about its “crucial” collaboration with the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN) to develop a national health data dictionary. According to Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo, PhilHealth Chief Information and Technology Executive, “without a data dictionary, confusion and misinterpretations are common.” With the openHDD, PhilHealth can create new strategies “to improve universal health coverage.”
PhilHealth’s adoption of openHDD is an international partnership embraced at the highest level of the PhilHealth Corporation.
Paying for health and innovating for value in Myanmar
In Myanmar, 50 years of military dictatorship left behind a seriously underdeveloped health system, serving barely one in twenty of the country’s 60 million people. You might expect that the first minister of health under civilian rule would be despondent. But on my recent trip I found the opposite: Dr. Pe Thet Khin and his team are aligned around an ambitious vision for building a strong health system for the country.
The challenges are daunting: for years, Myanmar (also known as Burma) has ranked among the world’s lowest in public sector health spending per capita, as the government prioritized military spending instead. As recently as 2010, less than 1% of Myanmar’s government spending went to health, compared to 6% to 13% for nearby Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The Week in Headlines
UHC Forward's Weekly Roundup of Headlines from Around the Globe
Governments around the world are engaging in serious political and technical discussions on how to expand health coverage.
Davos: Innovating Dynamic Health Systems
PSI President and CEO Karl Hofmann shared the following analysis on the question of developing health systems and universal healthcare that was discussed by a panel of experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. This blog is cross-posted from the PSI Impact Blog.
Is universal health coverage a pipe dream, the fevered aim of Geneva bureaucrats,and beyond the reach of real world health systems? This session attempted to tackle this tough question.