Universal Health Care includes:

Financial risk protection, access to quality essential health care services, safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE

What national health insurance is:

• National health insurance (sometimes called statutory health insurance), is health insurance that insures a national population for the costs of health care and usually is instituted as a program of healthcare reform. It is enforced by law.
• It may be administered by the public sector, the private sector, or a combination of both. Funding mechanisms vary with the program and country.

What national health insurance is not:

• National or statutory health insurance does not equate to government run, or government financed health care, but is usually established by national legislation.

SOUTH AFRICA AND UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE

What is inequality?

Inequality is a broad term, generally used in the human rights field to describe differences among individuals some of which are not remediable with current knowledge.

What is inequity?

Inequity is the presence of systematic and potentially remediable differences among population groups, that is defined socially, economically and/or geographically – it is not the same as inequality.

By far the biggest challenge with the coverage of the entire population of South Africa with universal health, is the inequity that exist between different subgroups within the total South African population.

The availability, accessibility, delivery and standard of healthcare in South Africa is determined by four main factors:

• The type of healthcare facility
• Funding options
• Place of primary residence
• Ethnic grouping

South Africa’s specific health inequalities are:

• Health services in the public and private sector differs.
• Not all patients are financially covered for medical expenses.
• There are differences between the provinces within South Africa.
• Ethnic groups in South Africa differ from each other.