A/71/304 81. Moving towards universal health coverage requires long -term progressive realization of the right to health that engages work across many sectors at the local, national, and international levels. The World Health Organization Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage has proposed a three -part strategy for countries to progressively realize universal health coverage consistent with equity principles and the right to health. This includes prioritizing the worst off, expanding coverage to everyone and reducing out-of-pocket payments, all while ensuring that disadvantaged groups are not left behind. 42 82. The right to health recognizes the importance of prioritizing investments in primary and preventive care, which benefits a far larger sector of the population, over expensive specialized health services, often accessible only to a small, privileged fraction of the population. Investing in primary health ser vices prevents illness and promotes mental and physical health, and in turn reduces the need for specialized care. Financial risk protection 83. In many countries, out-of-pocket payments, such as user fees and co-payments, fees for treatment and indirect fees related to the costs of seeking health care, such as transportation costs, create major barriers to health care. 84. Such costs often have a significant and disproportionate impact on the poor, who pay a considerably larger portion of their total income on health. In turn, they drive many households into poverty or deepen the poverty of those already poor. Such fees could bar those without the means to pay from receiving needed care, as well as discourage people from seeking care in the first place. 85. Private, out-of-pocket payments account for about 50 per cent of total health expenditures in countries where more than 50 per cent of the population is living on less than $2 per day. It is actually the poorest and most in need who suffer from such payments. 43 Universal health coverage consistent with the right to health requires establishing a financing system that is equitable and pays special attention to the poor and others unable to pay for health-care services, such as children and adolescents. Moving past the biomedical model of health 86. States will not achieve Goal 3 without a robust commitment to addressing social and psychosocial determinants of health, as well as inequalities in income, education, living and working conditions and distribution of resources. Universal health coverage must not be limited to biomedical interventions such as medicines and vaccines but must equally include modern interventions that go beyond the biomedical model, including psychosocial and other interventions that address structural and environmental barriers to health. These interventions should be supported and funded as effective and essential interventions, on par with biomedical interventions, and should not be seen as a luxury available only to rich countries. __________________ 42 43 20/26 WHO, Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage: Final Report of the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage (Geneva, 2014). ILO, Addressing the global health crisis: universal health protection policies , Social Protection Policy Papers, No. 13 (Geneva, 2014). 16-13597