Universal Health Coverage in Low- and Middle-income Countries: Why Economists Get it Wrong

Stefano Bertozzi, MD, PhD, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Dean Emeritus, and Interim Director Alianza UCMX

I will discuss the tension between (1) technocratic approaches to improving effective coverage that both focus efforts on the populations with the greatest needs (financial and health) and on explicitly choosing interventions that produce the greatest returns in health and (2) more populist approaches that promise universal coverage and avoid explicit limits on the scope of what is covered.  the parallel debates on health system reform in Mexico and the USA prompt this discussion, but I will bring in some relevant examples from other countries as well.