In 2011, Japan celebrated the 50th anniversary of its own achievement of universal health coverage (UHC). On this occasion, the government of Japan and the World Bank conceived the idea of undertaking a multi-country study to respond to this growing demand by sharing rich and varied country...

The goals of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) are to ensure that all people can access quality health services, to safeguard all people from public health risks, and to protect all people from impoverishment due to illness, whether from out-of-pocket payments for health care or loss of income...

When the Japanese government adopted Western medicine in the late nineteenth century, it left intact the infrastructure of primary care by giving licenses to the existing practitioners and by initially setting the hurdle for entry into medical school low. Public financing of hospitals was kept...

Co-opting physicians to regulate Fee-for-Service (FFS) payment is more feasible and simpler to administer than capitation, Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGs) and pay-for-performance. The key lies in designing and revising the fee schedule, which not only defines and sets the fee for each item, but...