The recent UN General Assembly resolution calling for universal health coverage (UHC) was testimony to the continuing high-level political commitment to achievement of global health goals—an achievement that has the potential to transform health systems, especially for the poorest people.
Fulfilment of this potential, however, requires a clear definition of the term UHC otherwise it could suffer the same fate of the refrain of Health for All, which received high-level political support but failed to produce sufficiently widespread policy and budgeting changes to realise its aims.
Ambiguously, UHC has been labelled universal health coverage (the term used in this Viewpoint), universal health care, universal health-care coverage, or universal coverage.
In the context of UHC, the term universal has been defined as a legal obligation of the state to provide health care to all its citizens, with particular attention to ensure inclusion of all disadvantaged and excluded groups.
Yet, noble as a commitment to universality sounds, it might do little to change policies under which many governments either deliberately or passively refuse to grant access to health services to some people living within their national borders
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