22nd March, 2017 An online guest lecture was arranged on US Healthcare System, Lessons for Developing Countries by Prime Institute of Public Health on 22 March, 2017 at PIPH.
The guest speaker Dr Sudha Xirasagar is a Professor of Health Services Policy and Management in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. She has published over 80 papers in leading peer-reviewed journals and received grants from United States federal, state and other institutions to support her research.
Dr. Sudha explained that US has a complex healthcare system therefore continuous and comprehensive care is not enjoyed by all Americans. She described that the main source of dissatisfaction of the US population with the healthcare system is the financial insecurity caused by very high healthcare costs that in turn render insurance protection inadequate and require high out–of–pocket costs. The US healthcare system is financed from a combination of public taxpayer dollars (47%) and private sources, mainly insurance premiums and out of pocket expenditures (53%).
Dr. Sudha discussed challenges faced by US healthcare system and lessons developing counties can learn from it in details. She explained that US healthcare system paves the way for developing nations who are committed to provide universal access through health insurance by setting things in right direction from the beginning. She described that universal health coverage is best achieved by a social health insurance approach which covers preventive and certain limited curative care services in the favour of sustainability and affordability of plan. This should be supplemented through private insurance plans for those who can afford in an attempt to pool the finance and risks efficiently and effectively.
She emphasized that Government has the key role to play in policy and regulations of benefits, effective allocation of resources, incentivizing the providers for quality, appropriate, equitable and responsive care.
