In Health Care, Republicans Could Learn From Rwanda
Since Ghana began its health care reform in 2003, access has increased from 6.6 percent to
38 percent of the population, according to an analysis by researchers at the World Bank.
As you keep looking for ways to take away the health insurance of tens of millions of Americans of limited means, the experience of these
countries might help you consider alternative approaches to improve the American health care system while still providing access for all.
But over the past 15 years or so, Rwanda has built a near-universal health care system
that covers more than 90 percent of the population, financed by tax revenue, foreign aid and voluntary premiums scaled by income.
In Peru, coverage has increased from about 37 to 62 percent since the start of reforms;
in Vietnam, from 16 to 67.5 percent; in Thailand, from 63 to 96 percent.
“No country has attained universal population coverage based on a system organized around voluntary prepayment,” the World Bank researchers wrote.
Republicans, I know Rwanda — with its poverty, illiteracy and autocratic government — is not in the same peer group as the United States.
