Universal Health Coverage Development in Thailand: How Global Ideas and a National Medical Professional Movement Made a Difference

Sukhampha R. Universal Health Coverage Development in Thailand: How Global Ideas and a National Medical Professional Movement Made a Difference. 2021.Background:Universal health coverage is endorsed as the global development agenda in the 2015 SDGs for global achievement by 2030 and is expected to build national policymaking agendas. Common research often focuses on national processes in the first place. For example, accounts of Thailand's health system development mostly emphasise domestic factors and influences rather than the linkage of external/global health ideas. The paper questions how external/global health ideas influence national health policymaking and the linkage between them in achieving Thailand's universal health coverage policy.Methods: A qualitative method was employed to capture complex and historical narratives of the national medical professional movement for Thailand's health system reform through the lens of a global social policy approach for exploring external and global health ideas transfer. Moreover, the actor- and policy entrepreneur approaches would be employed to investigate national health policymaking and examine how ideas from the external and global levels have improved national equity in health.Results:The research locates the narratives on global ideas and practices that influence a national health system reform. This highlights the impact/role of global ideas on national professional movements, i.e. the rural doctor movement in Thailand mobilising the health system reform for all. The study found that national equity in health could not be achieved without external/global health ideas transfer. Such a case of national universal health coverage achievement in Thailand happened with the effort of the rural doctor movement and individual agency as policy entrepreneurs in translating external/global ideas and practices for their movement and mobilisation. The case contributed to a better understanding of the global process regarding ideas and practices that can be transferred directly and indirectly to the national level.Conclusions:Global ideas transfer can also happen in different aspects such as it can be seen the ideas transfer from developed to developed countries; from developed to developing countries. Besides, the author witnessed that the IOs ideas can also be transferred to developing countries or reverse, and again, between developing countries themselves