Health Affairs Blog: In Nepal, Health Insurance For All
Gagan Thapa, former member of Parliament and former minister of health of Nepal; Amit Aryal, health policy adviser and the co-chair of Nepal’s National Committee of the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the Sustainable Development Goals era; and Duncan Maru, assistant professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Possible, discuss Nepal’s passage last month of its National Health Insurance Act and the history behind the law. The authors note, “Nepal’s new act adds the nation to the list of countries with a solid national health insurance foundation. … [The] features of the new act providing health insurance to all in Nepal will hopefully lay the groundwork for future policies aimed at regulating health care on the basis of outcomes, quality, and cost efficiency” (11/1).