Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health

Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa – the countries known as BRICS – represent some of the world’s fastest growing large economies and nearly 40% of the world’s population. Over the last two decades, BRICS have undertaken health-system reforms to make progress towards unive...

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Main Authors:	Rao, Krishna D., Petrosyan, Varduhi, Correia Araujo, Edson, McIntyre, Diane
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	World Health Organization 2015
Subjects:	universal health coverage health insurance BRICS
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23220

id	okr-10986-23220
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-232202021-04-23T14:04:13Z Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health Rao, Krishna D. Petrosyan, Varduhi Correia Araujo, Edson McIntyre, Diane universal health coverage health insurance BRICS Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa – the countries known as BRICS – represent some of the world’s fastest growing large economies and nearly 40% of the world’s population. Over the last two decades, BRICS have undertaken health-system reforms to make progress towards universal health coverage. This paper discusses three key aspects of these reforms: the role of government in financing health; the underlying motivation behind the reforms; and the value of the lessons learnt for non-BRICS countries. Although national governments have played a prominent role in the reforms, private financing constitutes a major share of health spending in BRICS. There is a reliance on direct expenditures in China and India and a substantial presence of private insurance in Brazil and South Africa. The Brazilian health reforms resulted from a political movement that made health a constitutional right, whereas those in China, India, the Russian Federation and South Africa were an attempt to improve the performance of the public system and reduce inequities in access. The move towards universal health coverage has been slow. In China and India, the reforms have not adequately addressed the issue of out-of-pocket payments. Negotiations between national and subnational entities have often been challenging but Brazil has been able to achieve good coordination between federal and state entities via a constitutional delineation of responsibility. In the Russian Federation, poor coordination has led to the fragmented pooling and inefficient use of resources. In mixed health systems it is essential to harness both public and private sector resources. 2015-12-04T17:34:26Z 2015-12-04T17:34:26Z 2014-06 Journal Article Bulletin of the World Health Organization http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23220 en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Health Organization Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	universal health coverage health insurance BRICS
spellingShingle	universal health coverage health insurance BRICS Rao, Krishna D. Petrosyan, Varduhi Correia Araujo, Edson McIntyre, Diane Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health
description	Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa – the countries known as BRICS – represent some of the world’s fastest growing large economies and nearly 40% of the world’s population. Over the last two decades, BRICS have undertaken health-system reforms to make progress towards universal health coverage. This paper discusses three key aspects of these reforms: the role of government in financing health; the underlying motivation behind the reforms; and the value of the lessons learnt for non-BRICS countries. Although national governments have played a prominent role in the reforms, private financing constitutes a major share of health spending in BRICS. There is a reliance on direct expenditures in China and India and a substantial presence of private insurance in Brazil and South Africa. The Brazilian health reforms resulted from a political movement that made health a constitutional right, whereas those in China, India, the Russian Federation and South Africa were an attempt to improve the performance of the public system and reduce inequities in access. The move towards universal health coverage has been slow. In China and India, the reforms have not adequately addressed the issue of out-of-pocket payments. Negotiations between national and subnational entities have often been challenging but Brazil has been able to achieve good coordination between federal and state entities via a constitutional delineation of responsibility. In the Russian Federation, poor coordination has led to the fragmented pooling and inefficient use of resources. In mixed health systems it is essential to harness both public and private sector resources.
format	Journal Article
author	Rao, Krishna D. Petrosyan, Varduhi Correia Araujo, Edson McIntyre, Diane
author_facet	Rao, Krishna D. Petrosyan, Varduhi Correia Araujo, Edson McIntyre, Diane
author_sort	Rao, Krishna D.
title	Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health
title_short	Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health
title_full	Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health
title_fullStr	Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health
title_full_unstemmed	Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health
title_sort	progress towards universal health coverage in brics : translating economic growth into better health
publisher	World Health Organization
publishDate	2015
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23220
_version_	1764453241122193408

Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage in BRICS : Translating Economic Growth into Better Health

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