The movement towards universal health coverage (UHC) is currently among the most prominent global health policies. According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, all UN Member States agreed to work towards achieving Universal Health Coverage by 2030. This includes financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all. As more countries make commitments to universal health coverage especially in these tough times caused by the C-19 pandemic, they face challenges on how to quantify it and track progress towards its key goals, both in terms of health services and financial protection coverage. The Joint WHO/World Bank Group report released on 2015 entitled ‘Tracking universal health coverage: First global monitoring report” provided guidance about how states can achieve universal health coverage and build more resilient health systems and we the People’s Health Movement Uganda chapter believe that some of the suggested guidelines are ether realistically non-applicable or pose a barrier to attainment of sustainable development goals and Universal Health Coverage all together most especially in the face of Covid-19 pandemic.
PHM Uganda recognises the importance of universal health coverage (UHC) although it needs to be qualified due to its interpretation proximity with primary health care and the diversity of interpretations of both PHC and UHC circulating. Some of these interpretations, such as the World Bank’s multi-player, stratified access, mixed delivery models, as PHM we believe are affecting health for all as clarified In the foregoing.
The marketisation of UHC most especially at a time of the raging COVID-19 pandemic did undermine the implementation of comprehensive primary health care in most countries like Uganda. Health care was unaffordable and it reduced PHC to arbitrarily defined ‘interventions’ and as a result limited and distorted the analysis of needs and priorities; precluded effective community accountability; ignored public and community action around the social determination of health; and prevented best use of limited resources. Uganda experienced the emergency of public health policies and laws that criminalized illness. The contemporary policy debates around UHC
being framed by macroeconomic instabilities globally and the neoliberal policies being put in place to manage those instabilities has weighed in negatively. Widening social and economic inequalities associated with neoliberal economic policies have greatly contributed to the fraying of social solidarity and consequently weakened political support for single pool single payer systems. Transnational corporations, as the principal conduits of foreign direct investment, are driving a race to the bottom with respect to tax policies (through tax competition) with increased restrictions on public funding of health care as a consequence. Neoliberal pressures to open new markets for corporate investors through health system privatization (supported by trade in services provisions and investor protection provisions in contemporary trade agreements) contributed to the privileging of market models in health policy debate.
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