Health Insurance
 CROP.jpg "Egypt. Credit: Marty Makinen")
Challenge
Out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending by households accounts for more than half of total health financing in most developing countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Reducing OOP payments and developing appropriate financial risk protection systems is crucial to increasing access to health care by the poor and working towards the World Health Organization’s goal of universal coverage. Since the 2005 call for universal coverage, interest in health insurance among developing countries has spread quickly. Almost every USAID-presence country in sub-Saharan Africa is actively exploring the introduction or expansion of some form of risk pooling. Worldwide, many countries already have spent scarce time, money, and effort on health insurance initiatives. While health insurance offers many benefits, developing countries face great challenges as to how to increase their financing capacity, extend health insurance coverage to the poor, expand benefits packages, and improve the performance of existing health insurance schemes.
Approach
Health Systems 20/20 has a solid foundation in the areas of health insurance, vouchers, conditional cash transfer, and other financial risk protection activities. The project has shown global leadership by helping countries develop and implement more effective financial risk protection mechanisms. The project’s approaches to these challenges include:
- Increasing understanding among policymakers and implementers to the challenges as well as benefits of financial risk protection approaches based on the evidence from studies and regional workshops, and practical technical materials such as the Health Insurance Handbook
- Providing country-based technical assistance to move forward with schemes development and implementation in Egypt, India, Liberia, Mali, and Senegal
- Building the global leadership and the collaboration relationship with international development agencies to accelerate and expand the project’s technical impact, enhance project and USAID credibility, and leverage funds
Useful Resources
- Health Insurance Handbook
- Health Systems 20/20 and Financial Risk Protection/Health Insurance Brief
- Ghana Africa Health Insurance Workshop and planned Francophone Health Insurance Workshop
- Download a Health Systems 20/20 presentation on improving access to health care through insurance
Health Insurance Handbook: How to Make It Work
Dec 2011 | Health Systems 20/20 | Tool
Eight Strategies that Strengthen Health Systems Worldwide
Health Systems 20/20 and Financial Risk Protection
Paying for a Healthier Future
Jun 2011 | Health Systems 20/20 | Journal
Scaling Up Health Insurance Coverage Across Africa
Mar 1 2012Health Systems 20/20 is pleased to release the fifth in the Better Health Systems – Strategies that Work series. This issue focuses on scaling up health insurance coverage across Africa. More...
President of Benin Endorses Universal Health Insurance Plan
Feb 22 2012President Thomas Boni Yayi launched a landmark universal health insurance policy in Benin that will increase access to lifesaving health care for people in a country where 37 percent of the population lives in poverty. Health Systems 20/20 joins partners in advising on the implementation strategy of the new plan, Régime d’assurance maladie universelle (RAMU).
More...The World Bank Reissues Health Systems 20/20 Health Insurance Handbook
Jan 6 2012The World Bank has reissued the Health System 20/20 Health Insurance Handbook: How to Make it Work as part of the World Bank Working Paper series. Available in paper, widget, and e-book form, the reissue makes the handbook available to an even broader audience and furthers Health Systems 20/20 collaboration with the Bank.
More...Setting Up a National Health Insurance Plan in Namibia
Oct 11 2011Egypt’s National Health Insurance Organization Staff Receive Financial and Case Management Training
Jul 19 2011
Capacity Building
