Letters: Our poor healthcare system

I refer to a news report titled “Toddler dies after being denied treatment,” (www.thejakartapost.com, Dec. 27).

This is, again, only one of many lessons learned showing that our nation should start thinking about and realizing the benefits of so-called universal health care.

While politicians and the government praise our current achievements that Indonesia is now part of the elite “G20 club” of countries — this story tells that a lot of things remain to be done nationally.

The first small step that the central government should take is to outline a road map to realize such goal. The US recently showed the world how a powerful nation and government can prod the national political discussions to realize goals.

Indeed, universal health care systems vary according to the extent of government involvement in providing care and/or health insurance. In some countries, such as the UK, Spain and the Nordic countries, the government has a high degree of involvement in the commissioning or delivery of health care services and access is based on residence rights not on the purchase of insurance.

The would-be US legislation on health care some time next year will also make the US follow the same path of other developed countries. Therefore, it would be very logical to say that if Indonesia would like to be more recognized as a developed country, one of its key features will be that it has to have a universal health care system.

Krido
Jakarta