 It is not only the wealthy, industrialized countries that assure universal access to a broad range of personal medical services. Recently, middle-income countries such as South Korea and Taiwan have adopted universal coverage insurance schemes. Thailand and Mexico have also added insurance schemes aimed at covering the nearly half of their populations that had not been covered in the social security schemes and other insurance schemes that are used by civil servants or large employers. The benefit package in these different schemes is often not equal across these components of the health system, but the avowed goal is to close gaps in access and incrementally to approach equality of access.