RESOLUTIONS AND DECISIONS
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EB115.R13
Sustainable health financing, universal coverage and social health insurance
The Executive Board, Having considered the report on social health insurance,1 RECOMMENDS to the Fifty-eighth World Health Assembly the adoption of the following resolution: The Fifty-eighth World Health Assembly, Having considered the report on social health insurance; Noting that health-financing systems in many countries need to be further developed in order to guarantee access to necessary services while providing protection against financial risk; Accepting that, irrespective of the source of financing for the health system selected, prepayment and pooling of resources and risks are basic principles in financial-risk protection; Considering that the choice of a health-financing system should be made within the particular context of each country; Acknowledging that a number of Member States are pursuing health-financing reforms that may involve a mix of public and private approaches, including the introduction of social health insurance; Noting that some countries have recently been recipients of large inflows of external funding for health; Recognizing the important role of State legislative and executive bodies in further reform of health-financing systems with a view to achieving universal coverage, 1. URGES Member States: (1) to ensure that health-financing systems include a method for prepayment of financial contributions for health care, with a view to sharing risk among the population and avoiding catastrophic health-care expenditure and impoverishment of individuals as a result of seeking care; (2) to ensure adequate and equitable distribution of good-quality health care infrastructures and human resources for health so that the insurees will receive equitable and good-quality health services according to the benefits package; (3) to ensure that external funds for specific health programmes or activities are managed and organized in a way that contributes to the development of sustainable financing mechanisms for the health system as a whole;
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Document EB115/8.
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EXECUTIVE BOARD, 115TH SESSION
(4) to plan the transition to universal coverage of their citizens so as to contribute to meeting the needs of the population for health care and improving its quality, to reducing poverty, to attaining internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, and to achieving health for all; (5) to recognize that, when managing the transition to universal coverage, each option will need to be developed within the particular macroeconomic, sociocultural and political context of each country; (6) to take advantage, where appropriate, of opportunities that exist for collaboration between public and private providers and health-financing organizations, under strong overall government stewardship; (7) to share experiences on different methods of health financing, including the development of social health insurance schemes, and private, public, and mixed schemes, with particular reference to the institutional mechanisms that are established to address the principal functions of the health-financing system; 2. REQUESTS the Director-General: (1) to provide, in response to requests from Member States, technical support for strengthening capacities and expertise in the development of health-financing systems, particularly prepayment schemes, including social health insurance, with a view to achieving the goal of universal coverage and taking account of the special needs of small island countries and other countries with small populations; and to collaborate with Member States in the process of social dialogue on health-financing options; (2) to provide Member States, in coordination with the World Bank and other relevant partners, with technical information on the potential impact of inflows of external funds for health on macroeconomic stability; (3) to create sustainable and continuing mechanisms, including regular international conferences, subject to availability of resources, in order to facilitate the continuous sharing of experiences and lessons learnt on social health insurance; (4) to provide technical support in identifying data and methodologies better to measure and analyse the benefits and cost of different practices in health financing, covering collection of revenues, pooling, and provision or purchasing of services, taking account of economic and sociocultural differences; (5) to provide support to Member States, as appropriate, for developing and applying tools and methods to evaluate the impact on health services of changes in healthfinancing systems as they move towards universal coverage. (Twelfth meeting, 24 January 2005)