UHC with Emphasis on Third World Countries

Committee : World Health Organization (WHO)

Topic : Universal Healthcare Coverage with Emphasis on Third World Countries
Country: Egypt
Delegate: Salma Gamal Soliman

Good health is essential to sustained economic and social development and poverty reduction.
At the same time, people need to be protected from being pushed into poverty because of the
cost of health care.1
One of the oddities in the contemporary world is our astonishing failure to make adequate use
of policy lessons that can be drawn from the diversity of experiences that the heterogeneous
world already provides. There is much evidence of the big contributions that UHC can make
in advancing the lives of people, and in enhancing economic and social opportunities—
including facilitating the possibility of sustained economic growth.2 With free universal health
care, people may not be as careful with their health. They don't have the financial incentive to
do so. Without a co-pay, people might overuse emergency rooms and doctors. Most universal
health systems report long wait times for elective procedures. The government focuses on
providing basic and emergency health care. Governments limit payment amounts to keep costs
low. Doctors have less incentive to provide quality care if they aren't well paid. They might
spend less time per patient to keep their costs down. They have less funding for new life-saving
technologies. Health care costs overwhelm government budgets. For example, some Canadian
provinces spend 40 percent of their budget on health care. That reduces funding for other
programs like education and infrastructure. To cut costs, the government may limit services
with a low probability of success. It may not cover drugs for rare conditions. It may prefer
palliative care over expensive end-of-life care.3
Egypt offers a universal health care system. Still, quality of care in public hospitals is far
lower than in private and foreign clinics. The main government bodies governing Egypt’s
health care system are the Ministry of Health and the Health Insurance Organization (HIO).
Decades ago, the HIO was created as the umbrella organization that would provide all
Egyptians with insurance and care. Today, it covers only government employees and school-
age children.4overall, Egyptians prefer to see private doctors for check-ups and outpatient
care (if they can afford it). In a recent government survey, over half of the respondents said
that they attempted to obtain private care before government care.

With regards to inpatient care, however, the statistics are skewed sharply in the opposite
direction. The same survey concluded that around 90% of inpatient beds are in public
medical facilities (public hospitals, university hospitals, military hospitals). In addition, most

1
https://www.who.int/healthsystems/universal_health_coverage/en/
2
http://harvardpublichealthreview.org/universal-health-care-the-affordable-dream/
3
https://www.thebalance.com/universal-health-care-4156211
4
https://www.justlanded.com/english/Egypt/Egypt-Guide/Health/Introduction
 UHC with Emphasis on Third World Countries

Egyptians’ health insurance is provided through either the Ministry of Health or the HIO –
both of which only cover public health care facilities

Egypt has a health insurance system that dates to the 1960s, when populist policies extended
basic services to all citizens. The 1962 law stipulated that everyone would be covered by the
health insurance, but over the years it lost its effectiveness, pushing many to forego the
system in search of better-quality healthcare. With the old insurance system deemed hopeless,
there have been many attempts to come up with a better universal plan for health insurance
and to ensure that everyone is covered by medical insurance. Finally, this year a high-profile
plan to improve health-insurance coverage for the public was approved by the House of
Representatives, the country’s parliament. The law is designed to provide optimal medical
services for the whole nation. All public and private-sector workers will benefit from the new
comprehensive insurance system, along with their wives, parents and children. Premiums will
be taken from monthly salaries at varying percentages, though always less than five per cent. 5

It is believed that the new insurance system will require the government to allocate at least
LE120 billion annually to guarantee the system’s operating according to international
standards. The government currently allocates only LE8 billion for the health system. Such
an amount will be insufficient for the new system.

At the end, Egypt proposes 5 main solutions:

1- Increase people’s awareness regarding healthcare and help in erasing their fear from
doctors through supervised awareness campaigns to kids and adults (ex. Public events). while
also motivating doctors and giving them incentives to work.
2-Putting unbiased supervision on the organizations responsible for the implementing of the
UHC in order to monitor the right allocation of funds collected. the financial status of the
system shall be examined at least once every four years by one or more experts in the field of
health who shall be assigned by the Prime Minister based on the nomination of the Minister
of Finance and Minister of health.
3-Periodic international training and seminars should be held by experts to train doctors and
health care workers on how to deal with the new types of diseases and to make sure there’re
up to date with the evolving medical researches and improvements all around the world.
4- The new system should be funded through taxes imposed on negative externalities such as
cigarettes and factories pollution. Car owners should pay extra sums when issuing or
renewing their driving licence. Further sums should be pay when issuing or renewing
licences, according to car size and capacity.
5- Providing support to the pharmaceutical sector. This involves raising their capacity in issues
related to intellectual property, good governance in medicine (GGM), putting funds in their
R&D departments.

5
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/1189/291137/Egypt/ElSisis-Balance-Sheet/The-healing-of-
Egypt-A-new-universal-health-insura.aspx