Implementing universal health insurance has its fair share of challenges. Indonesia operates one of the world’s largest universal health insurance schemes, but only one-third of its informal workers are receiving government subsidies for insurance premiums, due to barriers to enrollment, weak administrative state capacity, and inaccuracies in the state’s civil registries. This situation incites several questions: How does Indonesia’s current economic condition affect its national health insurance program? What are the methods to increase its enrollment?

“The Challenges of Universal Health Insurance in Developing Countries: A Case of Indonesia’s National Health Insurance”, an academic paper published in the American Economic Review strives to answer these questions. In this very first Paper dialogue, we invite Benjamin Olken, the Jane Berkowitz Calrton and Dennis WIlliam Carlton Professor of Microeconomics in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the contributors of this paper.