Achieving universal coverage – defined as access to needed health services without the associated risk of financial hardship (World Health Organization 2010) – is at the core of international discussion on strengthening health systems and the struggle to achieve the health MDGs. WHO’s most recent World Health Report (WHR) ‘Health systems financing: the path to universal coverage’ (World Health ...

The global financial crisis of 2008 has led to the reinforcement of patient cost sharing in health care policy. This study aimed to explore the impact of direct out-of pocket payments (OOPs) on health care utilization and the resulting financial burden across income groups under the South Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) program with universal population coverage. We used the fourth Korea...

risk of f nancial ruin or impoverishment. T at is the essence of universal health coverage. In 2005, all member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) made a commitment to achieve that goal. T e commitment was reaf rmed in 2012 through a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly (www.un.org/en/ga/67/resolutions.shtml) promoting universal health coverage, including comprehensive p...

Background Nepal has made remarkable efforts towards social health protection over the past several years. In 2016, the Government of Nepal introduced a National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) with an aim to ensure equitable and universal access to healthcare by all Nepalese citizens. Following the first year of operation, the scheme has covered 5 percent of its target population. There ...

Universal Access to Health is considered to be the absence of sociocultural, organizational, economic, geographic and gender-related barriers in health care, and Universal Health Coverage to be the capacity of health systems to respond to the populations' needs at any care level, providing infrastructure, appropriately skilled human resources and health technologies without causing financial da...