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Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand

Thailand’s policy on universal health coverage (UHC) has made good progress since its inception in 2002. Every Thai citizen is now entitled to essential preventive, curative and palliative health services at all life stages. Like its counterparts elsewhere, however, the policy faces challenges. A pr...

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Autores principales: Sumriddetchkajorn, Kanitsorn, Shimazaki, Kenji, Ono, Taichi, Kusaba, Tesshu, Sato, Kotaro, Kobayashi, Naoyuki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: World Health Organization 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6560367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31210679
http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.223693
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author Sumriddetchkajorn, Kanitsorn
Shimazaki, Kenji
Ono, Taichi
Kusaba, Tesshu
Sato, Kotaro
Kobayashi, Naoyuki
author_facet Sumriddetchkajorn, Kanitsorn
Shimazaki, Kenji
Ono, Taichi
Kusaba, Tesshu
Sato, Kotaro
Kobayashi, Naoyuki
author_sort Sumriddetchkajorn, Kanitsorn
collection PubMed
description Thailand’s policy on universal health coverage (UHC) has made good progress since its inception in 2002. Every Thai citizen is now entitled to essential preventive, curative and palliative health services at all life stages. Like its counterparts elsewhere, however, the policy faces challenges. A predominantly tax-financed system in a nation with a high proportion of people living in poverty will always strive to contain rising costs. Disparities exist among the different health insurance schemes that provide coverage for Thai citizens. National health expenditure is heavily borne by the government, primarily to reduce financial barriers to access for the poor. The population is ageing and the disease profiles of the population are changing alongside the modernization of Thai people’s lifestyles. Thailand is now aiming to enhance and sustain its UHC policy. We examine the merits of different policy options and aim to identify the most promising and feasible way to enhance and sustain UHC. We argue that developing the existing primary care system in Thailand has the greatest potential to provide more self-sustaining, efficient, equitable and effective UHC. Primary care needs to move from its traditional role of providing basic disease-based care, to being the first point of contact in an integrated, coordinated, community-oriented and person-focused care system, for which the national health budget should be prioritized.
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spelling pubmed-65603672019-06-17 Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand Sumriddetchkajorn, Kanitsorn Shimazaki, Kenji Ono, Taichi Kusaba, Tesshu Sato, Kotaro Kobayashi, Naoyuki Bull World Health Organ Policy & Practice Thailand’s policy on universal health coverage (UHC) has made good progress since its inception in 2002. Every Thai citizen is now entitled to essential preventive, curative and palliative health services at all life stages. Like its counterparts elsewhere, however, the policy faces challenges. A predominantly tax-financed system in a nation with a high proportion of people living in poverty will always strive to contain rising costs. Disparities exist among the different health insurance schemes that provide coverage for Thai citizens. National health expenditure is heavily borne by the government, primarily to reduce financial barriers to access for the poor. The population is ageing and the disease profiles of the population are changing alongside the modernization of Thai people’s lifestyles. Thailand is now aiming to enhance and sustain its UHC policy. We examine the merits of different policy options and aim to identify the most promising and feasible way to enhance and sustain UHC. We argue that developing the existing primary care system in Thailand has the greatest potential to provide more self-sustaining, efficient, equitable and effective UHC. Primary care needs to move from its traditional role of providing basic disease-based care, to being the first point of contact in an integrated, coordinated, community-oriented and person-focused care system, for which the national health budget should be prioritized. World Health Organization 2019-06-01 2019-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6560367/ /pubmed/31210679 http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.223693 Text en (c) 2019 The authors; licensee World Health Organization. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization or products. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL.
spellingShingle Policy & Practice
Sumriddetchkajorn, Kanitsorn
Shimazaki, Kenji
Ono, Taichi
Kusaba, Tesshu
Sato, Kotaro
Kobayashi, Naoyuki
Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand
title Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand
title_full Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand
title_fullStr Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand
title_full_unstemmed Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand
title_short Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand
title_sort universal health coverage and primary care, thailand
topic Policy & Practice
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6560367/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31210679
http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.223693
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