The Government of Indonesia (GoI) aims to cover 100 percent of the country’s 250 million citizens under Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional (JKN), the national health insurance scheme, by 2019. USAID/Indonesia is committed to supporting the GoI as it works towards its ambitious goal of universal health coverage (UHC).

Recognizing the importance of ensuring that its staff and implementing partners possess a common, well-grounded understanding of the fundamentals and challenges of achieving UHC in Indonesia, USAID/Indonesia worked with the Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project to train staff and partners. In February 2016, HFG conducted a comprehensive three-day training for USAID and implementing partner staff in Jakarta. The interactive training provided 47 participants with an enhanced understanding of basic health financing principles, various pathways towards UHC, and an overview of Indonesia’s national health insurance scheme, JKN.  

The training began with introductory sessions on the fundamentals of UHC to reiterate that “JKN (or health insurance writ large) is not UHC… but a (small) part of UHC,” as one participant noted. A series of technical presentations covered core health financing topics including: resource mobilization, risk pooling, strategic purchasing, and provider payment. Indonesian academics and local experts presented on challenges and opportunities with JKN, sharing insights from their experience in developing the policy.

On day three, participants analyzed relevant case studies from other countries working to achieve UHC, and presented recommendations for Indonesia based on lessons learned from these countries. The groups identified a set of core recommendations to strengthen UHC in Indonesia, including:

• Adopting mechanisms to improve financial sustainability, such as deductibles and some cost sharing for the non-poor (based on experience in the United States);
• Introducing a dynamic, evidence-based, participatory annual process for setting the benefit package (based on experience in Thailand); and
• Making preventive health checks a requirement in order for facilities to receive capitation payment (based on experience from Philippines).

The training provided participants with information they could apply to their day-to-day work and in their collaborations with local government officials. One trainee noted, “My understanding of JKN [gained during the training] will help me to understand what is the environment we are working in and what our partners and program clients are facing,” while another wrote that the training would support them in “engaging in discussion with local government to improve implementation of JKN.” USAID/Indonesia and its partners are now better equipped to engage in the social protection dialogue currently underway in Indonesia.

Training Resources