Such illnesses last longer and cost more to treat. This ''leads to a tremendous demand in health services,'' says R. Mark Brooks of the World Health Organization in Jakarta. Aware of the monumental health-care bills faced by governments in the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe, Asian policymakers fear a similar crisis if they don't act soon. We have to control this.'' Even successful programs face problems. Two years ago, Taiwan introduced universal health coverage.
Premiums are low, and patients can choose their doctors.
Officials now want to turn the health insurance bureau into a public foundation, a possible step toward a managed-care system. We're leaving middle-class services to the private sector and concentrating on areas that no one else wants to touch,'' says a senior Indonesian health official. In Taiwan, some private companies are already making up for the shortfalls in the new public-health system. People want their doctors to have more time to talk to them,'' says Dennis Wu, president of health care at Schmidt Taiwan. Singapore, which has the best care in the region, is the model of what governments should do to tackle health-care costs.