Guest editorial

摘要

Universal health care is now a common aspiration across the world. In Asia countries like South Korea and Thailand have laid a path to universal coverage, while China seeks to ascertain how it can meet the health care needs of a population of over 1.3 billion people. In Latin America, post-authoritarian constitutions wrestle with the problem of how feasibly to achieve the goal of ensuring the right to health contained in their democratic constitutions. In Africa, decision makers seek to cope with extending health care to poor rural communities and excluded societal groups. In Europe, Australasia and Canada the demands of ageing populations and high-cost Pharmaceuticals challenge policy makers to ensure cost-effective delivery of care. Even in the USA, for so long the outlier among high-income countries in its neglect of universal health care, decision makers are working out the implications of increasing the number of citizens with health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.