Increasing the Health of the Disadvantaged Indonesians through the Dana Sehat (Health Funding) Program as a Contribution to Integrated Microfinance Management

Abstract

Such socio-demographic change has largely been attributed to a situation in which poor people have become more prone to any type of ailment. By consequence, it is necessary for the government to address the specific health needs of the disadvantaged population in the country. This literature review seeks in particular to identify and discuss the dana sehat (health funding program) as a collective community-based initiative and approach to address situation by assessing its implementation, virtues and shortcomings in order to a formulate recommendations for policy makers in their integrated strategies of combining different community services with a view to reduce poverty in Indonesia. The Dana Sehat program has shown self-reliant and invoke active involvement from the community members at local levels in terms of sharing financial responsibility in order to safeguard the sustainability of the program, both between the wealthy and the poor. However, the Dana Sehat program has been disappointing in few areas, such as poor socialization about the program benefits to the consumers, the absence of a legal framework, and minimum supervision, which cause the decline in the number of participants. There is a compelling need to revitalize the dana sehat program by developing integrated strategies to address complicated issues of various financial which hinder sustainable community development as a means to become more effective to help the poor to improve their health and well-being.