Universal Health Coverage Day 2025: 'Expensive treatment? It's too much now!'

Kathmandu, December 12. Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day, celebrated every year on December 12, has become a topic of serious debate in the South-East Asian region with the theme “Unaffordable Health Costs? We are Sick of It!” This year, the theme of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day has become a topic of serious debate in the South-East Asian region with the theme “Unaffordable Health Costs? We are Sick of It!”.

In a message issued by Dr. Katharina Boehme, Acting Director of WHO South-East Asia, the message describes UHC as a fundamental principle of equity in health care and recalls the historic unanimous endorsement by the United Nations in 2012. UHC Day provides an opportunity to renew the commitment that all citizens should receive essential health services without financial burden.

Rising health costs, poor and rural communities at risk

Dr. Boehme mentioned that delaying treatment due to health costs or being forced to choose between treatment and daily needs is a failure of the health system. According to her, the poor and rural communities are the most affected by unaffordable health costs.

According to WHO data, the South-East Asian region’s UHC service access index improved from 53 to 68 between 2010 and 2023. However, progress is not uniform across countries, with the index ranging from 46 to 82.

The proportion of households spending more than 40 percent of their income on health has fallen from 38.4 percent in 2010 to 30.9 percent in 2022. However, the data shows that serious but non-poverty-related health expenditure has increased from 6.7 percent to 8.6 percent.

Financial burden impacts development

According to Dr. Boehme, having to choose between buying medicine and eating food is a sign of a crisis in development, equity and human dignity. It has been emphasized that depleting a family’s lifetime assets due to a serious illness is not in line with the spirit of UHC.

WHO’s six-point action plan

WHO has urged regional governments to accelerate six-point measures to achieve the UHC target by 2030. These include increasing public investment in health financing, expanding taxation and mandatory prepayment systems; strengthening service quality by increasing investment in primary health care; ensuring affordable service packages for all citizens; increasing efficiency in health systems through the adoption of evidence-based approaches (HTA);

expanding special concessions and social protection measures for the poor and vulnerable; and using digital technology and artificial intelligence in conjunction with equity, privacy and service improvement.

‘Health care without financial security is only half the achievement’

The message states – “Access to quality health care is not UHC; services with financial security are full UHC.”

WHO has urged people to take this year’s UHC Day as an opportunity to take decisive steps to make health care available and affordable for all.