investments in the extension of health insurance coverage, the strengthening of public health services, as well as primary care and better hospitals, highlights the emerging role of healthcare as part of china’s new growth regime, based on an expansion of services, and redistributive policies. such investments, apart from their central role in terms of relief for low-income people, serve to reb...

a recent editorial by naoki ikegami has proposed three key lessons from japan’s experience of achieving virtually universal coverage with primary healthcare services: the need to integrate the existing providers of primary healthcare services into the organised health system; the need to limit government commitments to finance hospital services and the need to empower providers of primary healt...

this article provides a commentary to ole norheim’ s editorial entitled “ethical perspective: five unacceptable trade-offs on the path to universal health coverage.” it reinforces its message that an inclusive, participatory process is essential for ethical decision-making and underlines the crucial importance of good governance in setting fair priorities in healthcare. solidarity on both natio...

health reforms that emphasize public health and improvements in primary care can be cost-effective measures to achieve health improvements, especially in developing countries that face severe resource constraints. in their paper “shanghai rising: health improvements as measured by avoidable mortality since 2000,” gusmano et al suggest that shanghai’s health policy-makers have been successful in...

the focus on public policy and health equity is discussed in reference to the current global health policy discussion on universal health coverage (uhc). this initiative has strong commitment from the leadership of the international organizations involved, but a lack of policy clarity outside of the health financing component may limit the initiative’s impact on health inequity. in order to add...

the world health organization’s (who’s) world health report 2010, “health systems financing, the path to universal coverage,” promoted universal health coverage (uhc) as an aspirational objective for country health systems. yet, in addition to the dimensions of services and coverage, distribution of coverage in the population, and financial risk protection highlighted by the report, the conside...

this article discusses what ethicists have called “unacceptable trade-offs” in health policy choices related to universal health coverage (uhc). since the fiscal space is constrained, trade-offs need to be made. but some trade-offs are unacceptable on the path to universal coverage. unacceptable choices include, among other examples from low-income countries, to expand coverage for services wit...