DR. M RAMESH “HEALTH POLICY DESIGN: THE CASE OF SINGAPORE”

Healthcare reform has been a top priority for policymakers around the world for the last few decades. The efforts have produced only modest gains, notwithstanding the vast financial and other resources devoted to implementing the reforms, indicating a need for a fresh approach.

Dr. M Ramesh will argue that to achieve universal health care (UHC) on a sustainable basis, policymakers need to adopt a problem-solving approach to the health system. Specifically, they need to identify the specific barriers to UHC and, more importantly, their root causes with the purpose of uprooting or at least mitigating them through the use of appropriate policy tools. What are the key systemic problems that policymakers need to concentrate on in their reform efforts? What are the policy tools available to address them? Dr. M Ramesh will explore these questions with reference to health policy in Singapore.