A Brief History

The concept of universal health insurance emerged after World War II, with Germany being the first country to implement it through the Health Insurance Act in 1883. Subsequently, countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan and the Scandinavian countries and Egypt have developed their own universal health care systems. Today, 72 countries around the world have successfully adopted UHC, ensuring both accessibility and affordability of healthcare.

Accessibility and Affordability – The Two Essential Components

The terms affordability and affordability are key to achieving UHC. Accessibility means ensuring that all government-mandated health services are available to urban and rural populations. It is not just about setting up hospitals and clinics, but all aspects of healthcare are covered, such as the availability of medicines, well-trained doctors and high-quality primary care.

Affordability plays a key role at UHC with the goal of reducing the financial burden of healthcare. According to the WHO, around 100 million people fall into poverty because of unaffordable medical costs.To address this problem, CSU is focused on reducing health facility costs and physician fees. However, this raises questions about the equitable remuneration of health workers and the funding needed to maintain health facilities.