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Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants

As countries throughout the world move towards universal health coverage, the obligation to realise the right to health for undocumented migrants has often been overlooked. With unprecedented millions on the move – including refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and returnees – und...

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Autores principales: Onarheim, Kristine Husøy, Melberg, Andrea, Meier, Benjamin Mason, Miljeteig, Ingrid
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6195153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30364297
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001031
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author Onarheim, Kristine Husøy
Melberg, Andrea
Meier, Benjamin Mason
Miljeteig, Ingrid
author_facet Onarheim, Kristine Husøy
Melberg, Andrea
Meier, Benjamin Mason
Miljeteig, Ingrid
author_sort Onarheim, Kristine Husøy
collection PubMed
description As countries throughout the world move towards universal health coverage, the obligation to realise the right to health for undocumented migrants has often been overlooked. With unprecedented millions on the move – including refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and returnees – undocumented migrants represent a uniquely vulnerable subgroup, experiencing particular barriers to health related to their background as well as insecure living and working conditions. Their legal status under national law often restricts access to, and affordability of, healthcare services. While striving to ensure health for all, national governments face challenging priority setting dilemmas in deciding: who to include, which services to provide, and how to cover out-of-pocket expenses. Building on comparative experiences in Norway, Thailand and the United States – which reflect varied approaches to achieving universal health coverage – we assess whether these national approaches provide rights-based access to affordable essential healthcare services for undocumented migrants. To meet the shared Sustainable Development Goal on universal health coverage, the right to health must be realised for all persons – including undocumented migrants. To ensure universal health coverage in accordance with the right to health, governments must evaluate laws, regulations, policies and practices to evaluate: whether undocumented migrants are included, to which services they have access, and if these services are affordable. Achieving universal health coverage for everyone will require rights-based support for undocumented migrants.
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spelling pubmed-61951532018-10-24 Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants Onarheim, Kristine Husøy Melberg, Andrea Meier, Benjamin Mason Miljeteig, Ingrid BMJ Glob Health Analysis As countries throughout the world move towards universal health coverage, the obligation to realise the right to health for undocumented migrants has often been overlooked. With unprecedented millions on the move – including refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and returnees – undocumented migrants represent a uniquely vulnerable subgroup, experiencing particular barriers to health related to their background as well as insecure living and working conditions. Their legal status under national law often restricts access to, and affordability of, healthcare services. While striving to ensure health for all, national governments face challenging priority setting dilemmas in deciding: who to include, which services to provide, and how to cover out-of-pocket expenses. Building on comparative experiences in Norway, Thailand and the United States – which reflect varied approaches to achieving universal health coverage – we assess whether these national approaches provide rights-based access to affordable essential healthcare services for undocumented migrants. To meet the shared Sustainable Development Goal on universal health coverage, the right to health must be realised for all persons – including undocumented migrants. To ensure universal health coverage in accordance with the right to health, governments must evaluate laws, regulations, policies and practices to evaluate: whether undocumented migrants are included, to which services they have access, and if these services are affordable. Achieving universal health coverage for everyone will require rights-based support for undocumented migrants. BMJ Publishing Group 2018-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6195153/ /pubmed/30364297 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001031 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
spellingShingle Analysis
Onarheim, Kristine Husøy
Melberg, Andrea
Meier, Benjamin Mason
Miljeteig, Ingrid
Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants
title Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants
title_full Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants
title_fullStr Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants
title_full_unstemmed Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants
title_short Towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants
title_sort towards universal health coverage: including undocumented migrants
topic Analysis
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6195153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30364297
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001031
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