Apparently universal health care HAS arrived

In Rwanda & Uganda & Zambia....


this article is from 2007, but here's a more recent one from 9/08..with an update on how they are doing
http://www.thestar.com/News/GlobalVoices/article/507998

http://www.blackcommentator.com/246/246_healthcare_here_rwanda_ruxin_guest.html

snip



Several years ago, the Government of Rwanda, with United States government support, piloted a system called “health mutuelle” that is essentially a community-based health insurance program. Pay $2 per year per person for mutuelle plus a co-payment — an insurmountable cost for many families — and you receive subsidized care. However, that subsidy is often not enough. I recently met a woman who was told in advance that she would need a Cesarean section at a local hospital but who simply did not have the funds to cover the 10 percent co-payment of roughly $5. She spent days canvassing friends and relatives to loan her the money, ended up with four IOUs, and had the surgery. The average co-pay in Rwanda is about 40 cents, but in a country where most make just a few dollars each month, that can be enough to keep a sick person from seeking care. You might ask: why in the world does a poor country like Rwanda insist on payments in the first place?

These regressive public health approaches emanate from IMF and World Bank mandates handed down in the 1970s as a reaction to rising health care costs, as well as a group of policies for community financing promoted in 1987 and called the Bamako Initiative.

snip..

The Millennium Villages project supports a Rwandan-managed health center in Mayange where — due to extreme poverty — co-pays are not required and the health mutuelle premium is subsidized (Paul Farmer and Partners and Health have recently adopted a similar approach alluded to in Forbes last week). The results have been impressive: nearly 100 percent of community members have health mutuelle and consider health care their right. Utilization rates have increased dramatically but staff report that they have not seen a single case of abuse.

Government of Rwanda is tracking the pilot closely to help determine how to balance subsidies for the poor against payments by wealthier Rwandans. It’s a challenging situation with great resonance in the United States, where the city of San Francisco just announced a plan to cover all of its citizens through a combination of free and sliding-scale payments.

Hope is emerging in Rwanda and across Africa. In Uganda and Zambia, co-payments are gone, replaced by universal health care; the effect has been immediate and dramatic. Calls to do the same have emerged in Sierra Leone. While many services still require co-pays and health insurance, the Rwandan Government has made treatment for AIDS utterly free and is looking at ways to cover payments for the poor, while avoiding a culture of dependency.
snip

Like say for women's reproductive health? Are there any religious requirements?

:grr:

The population has to pay more for imported goods, thus the cost goes up for everyone.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4753758&mesg_id=4753758

This ends up as a windfall for the Multinational Corporations.

Co-pays are presented as a cost-saving measure, but in reality I think they have more to do with right-wing ideas about "fairness." As we all know, "handouts" are never acceptable to a large percentage of any population (unless they go to the filthy rich). Co-pays prevent the appearance of handouts.

You can't have them going to the doctor for minor aches and pains without imposing a penalty.

Class Warfare at its finest.

they found no abuse..

Years ago our union plan had no copay, and we did not go to the doctor any more often.

People just don;t get up in the morning and say "Hey, since I've got nothing to do today, and I've got no co-pay, I think I'll just go hang out at the doctor's office"..People go to the doctor when they are SICK..

If any country could afford single-payer health care, the US should. Thanks to the Chamber of Commerce and other anti-worker groups, it will take an amendment to the Constitution to guarantee health care for all.