The Philippines will release a New Benefit Package for Covid-19 Patients under Home Quarantine
The Department of Health and the Philippines Health Insurance Corporation (commonly known as PhilHealth) has formulated a new home care benefit package for Covid 19 patients that will include "cost mechanisms", among others. The "holistic" home care...
Ukraine is planning to launch a health insurance system in 2023
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky instructed the Government to develop a health insurance model of health care, the introduction of which was promised in his election program. According to the orders given by the President, the Law on Health Insurance should be...
Russia has reformed its mandatory health insurance system to improve governance and clarify responsibilities of stakeholders
Russian Federation has enforced a Law on the Reform of the Mandatory Health Insurance (MHI) System since January of this year. The document enabled the transfer of the powers of insurers in controlling and financing of medical care to the Federal office of the...
Uzbekistan is to localize the production of SPUTNIK V vaccine to maximize population coverage
On April 1, a campaign to vaccinate the population against the COVID-19 was launched in Uzbekistan. Uzbeks started the vaccination campaign with the AstraZeneca vaccine, and a recombinant drug from the Chinese Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutica. Last...
Australia’s Medicare Benefit Schedule changes form 1 July 2021
From July 1 this year, more than 900 Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items for rebates for private surgery are set to change as part of the MBS Review of all 5,700 Medicare rebates. The latest changes will affect rebates for orthopaedic surgery, general surgery...
Bangladesh’s Health Budget during the Pandemic
Bangladesh has had less than 1% share of the annual budget for the health sector for over a decade now. The Covid 19 crisis has only made it more important to invest more in health services, infrastructure and personnel. This opinion piece by Dr Fahmida Khatun gives...
Thai Cabinet approves 311.6 million baht to fund efforts to address Covid 19 outbreaks in prisons
311.6 million baht, to be taken from the Thai government's central budget, was approved to cover the cost of Covid-19 containment measures adopted by prisons and correctional facilities in the country. The money will be used to buy 100,000 sets of RT PCR Covid-19 test...
Govt to borrow additional THB500 billion to aid Covid-19 response
The Royal Gazette website on Tuesday published an emergency decree allowing the Ministry of Finance to borrow money to tackle the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 outbreak among other things Of the THB 500 billion THB 30 billion will be allocated for...
Budget FY 2021-22: Covid-19 vaccination to get priority
Keeping the mass vaccination in mind, the revenue target for the next fiscal has been set Tk 389,078 crore, which is 11.02% of the GDP, according to the finance ministry and National Board of Revenue (NBR) sources. There will be Tk 10,000 crore special allocation for...
Sri Lanka to receive aid from Australia as part of the latter’s new Health Security Initiative
Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marise Payne, announced that Australia will provide AUD 5.5 million in funding to Sri Lanka as part of a new Health Security initiative to support the Sri Lankan Government’s COVID-19 response. The new initiative will assist...
Nepal gives priority to health in annual budget, allocates NPR 122 billion for vaccines
The caretaker government of Nepal has prioritized the health sector of the Nation in the budget of the fiscal year 2021-22, allocating over NPR (Nepalese Rupees) 122 Billion amid the Covid 19 crisis out of which 26.75 billion will be set aside for the procurement...
Ministry of Health to revise public healthcare subsidy framework to benefit those with greater needs
From the middle of next year, means-tested public healthcare subsidy frameworks are set to be revised as government spending on patient subsidies is projected to hit S$6.5 billion in the 2020 financial year, up from S$4 billion five years before. The changes...
Eight lessons from the UHC2030 Related Initiatives
Only 0.3% of COVID-19 vaccinations so far are in low-income countries, while 90% of countries report disruptions to health services due to the pandemic. There is therefore an acute need to invest in health systems to support the ongoing...
The Impact of Covid 19 on Subnational Government Financing and Household Financial Risk Protection in Indonesia
Covid 19 has exposed gaps in the budgetary allocations of the subnational governments in Indonesia that resulted in increase of out-pocket health expenditure and catastrophic household spending on health expenditure for health care...
Strengthening health financing response in COVID-19
The COVID-19 war and commitment towards UHC hinge on the criticality of designing strategic health financing policies in India. The pandemic provides the window of opportunity to reflect on our health financing objectives to strengthen the health system resilience and...