Resource Library

Scaling up of Affordable Health Insurance: Staying the Course

In this presentation, Jorge Coarasa provides an overview of the health financing debate between supporters of private health insurance and supporters of tax-funded national health systems. Coarasa argues that both types of insurance make important contributions to health financing in low-income countries, but that subsidies are critical to reaching the poor. He explores the economic adversities experienced in anglophone countries in West and East Africa that that led to deterioration of their publicly funded national health services, and the reforms that are leading to an aggressive scale-up of government-mandated health insurance. The end of the presentation examines the role of role of health insurance in health market development and a new paradigm for scaling up health insurance.