Abstract
The 30 baht universal health scheme established by Thai Government in 2001 proposed to provide welfare on health to Thai people. There are controversies whether this policy promotes equity in health.Objective: To study the ideologies of Thai people towards the universal health coverage policy.Method: Qualitative research complemented with quantitative method. Citizen dialogue technique (or weekend meeting) was applied to 100 people randomly selected in each province for the meeting. Participants gave their views in the questionnaires before and after the meeting. The meeting started with small group discussion in the morning and whole group meeting in order to reach consensus wherever possible. The study was conducted in 4 provinces: Sukhothai, Ubonratchathani, Phuket and Samut Sakhon.Results: The turn up rates of participant ranged from 22-80% of the invited guests. They supported the idea of increasing copayment of 30 baht to finance the universal health coverage because they believed that fee increased would provide coverage for more people. They were willing to pay income tax for universal health coverage because they wanted better services. They said the government should not pool in money from the social security scheme to finance universal health coverage. However, some supported that the government should pool in only particular percentage of money from social security scheme to manage the universal coverage policy. Most of participants agreed that the government universal health coverage should not focus on only the low income people because all people should have equal right to universal health coverage. Furthermore, the government should not increase user fee for those who cross the boundary for services (or against the universal health coverage guidelines), and people whohad an accident or were ill outside their contracted hospitals should not be punished by payinghigh fee. Finally, the universal coverage policy should not limit access to high cost care, they preferred to see the policy as advertised “30 baht for all diseases”. Conclusions: These Thais’ Ideologies were mixed between egalitarianism, communitarianism and utilitarianism. These ideologies represented that Thai people believed in the collective roles of the government to provide health services to all Thai people. Key words: universal health coverage, weekend meeting, egalitarianism, libertarianism, communitarianism and utilitarianism
