Comments on: Amanda Glassman et al: A post 2015 development goal for health—should it be universal health coverage?

By: Victoria Fan

Victoria Fan — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:58:00 +0000

Some have asked us, To what proposed UHC concept and measure our blog was responding? Last week I learned that a summary of a meeting on “Measuring and Monitoring Country Progress Toward Universal Health Coverage” came out and is available here on USAID’s Health Systems 20/20 page: http://www.healthsystems2020.org/content/resource/detail/92797/

By: Jaime Chang

Jaime Chang — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:46:00 +0000

Following on the very good article on “Achieving
universal health coverage in low-income settings” by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs (in The Lancet), I made a couple of comments that add to the opinions expressed in this post.

- The “basic package” will be different in each country not only because its burden of disease profile but also because of resources available for providing the basic package in a sustained manner. Unfortunately, “universal” is not equal to the same for everyone (even in a given country).

- In low-income countries, chronic diseases (e.g. obesity
related diseases, including diabetes) are already imposing a toll higher than some of the health problems “traditionally related” to them (e.g. acute respiratory and other communicable diseases) and even worse they impose “chronic and ever-increasing” burdens to the poor household and the low-income country. Nevertheless, they are not always considered when designing the basic package.

By: Bruno Meessen

Bruno Meessen — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:44:00 +0000

Thanks to the CGD team for this relevant contribution. I believe that any MDG indicator should also have at least a fifth attribute: be relevant from the specific perspective of each country. Priorities still vary a lot across settings. In this respect, your propositions make sense.