| Global Healthcare Issue | Healthcare access to all citizens (universal healthcare coverage) | |
| Description | The World Health Organization (WHO) global agenda focused on equitable healthcare to all people regardless of their economic status. Various countries have responded to this global health issue by formulating specific policies to ensure accessible health care to all citizens. This matrix compares the US policy and Kenyan Policies that relate to universal coverage. | |
| Country | United States | Kenya |
| Describe the policy in each country related to the identified healthcare issue | The Affordable Care Act: This policy was initially called The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is informally referred to as ‘Obamacare.’ This policy aimed at improving healthcare insurance among Americans to promote the affordability of healthcare (Isola & Reddivari, 2020). | Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC)In Kenya, a UHC policy was enacted recently with the objectives of providing affordable and essential care to all citizens. The policy had three pillars: service delivery, governance, and health financing (Barasa et al., 2018). |
| What are the strengths of this policy? | This policy has increased health insurance for Americans. The number of uninsured citizens has significantly dropped. The policy allows for insurance of minors and youths below 26 years to remain under the parents’ health insurance. It promoted minors’ insurance with preexisting conditions by baring insurance companies from declining cover for such age groups (McIntyre & Song, 2019). | The policy has increased the utilization of public hospitals by the patients. The cost of insurance is catered for by the government. The government partially covers expensive imaging and surgical procedures, subsidized in some cases. Therefore, citizens can participate fully in their healthcare delivery through supportive and early detection of diseases (Okech & Lelegwe, 2015). |
| What are the weaknesses of this policy? | The policy faces challenges from legal and private sector practices. The citizens end up subscribing to insurance policies that they do not ‘need.’ | The policy created overcrowding in hospitals. The patients seek medical attention for every condition at the same time to utilize their free insurance. The policy is also expensive on government expenditure. The national coverage is yet to be established. |
| Explain how the social determinants of health may impact the specified global health issue. (Be specific and provide examples) | The expertise qualification to register and enroll the participant in Obamacare was not sufficient. The number of unexpectedly sick citizens would overwhelm the insurers in the program. The human resources to enroll and stratify citizens into who needed to take insurance cover for their health urgently and who did not need this service could overwhelm the human resource (McIntyre & Song, 2019). | The number of employed doctors by the government in the public sector is low. According to the Voice of Africa News, the current ratio of doctor to patient ratio in Kenya is 1:16000. This means that one doctor is to serve 16000 Kenyans. With the introduction of government sponsored UHC, citizens have shifted to public healthcare (Okech & Lelegwe, 2015). The doctors are likely to be overwhelmed. |
| How has each country’s government addressed cost, quality, and access to the selected global health issue? | The US federal government has not solved unequal Medicaid expansion due to its inability to cover fully for middle- and a low-income class of citizens. There is no avail
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