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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the roles of social values in the reform of coverage decisions for Thailand's Universal Health Coverage (UC) plan in 2009 and 2010.

Qualitative techniques, including document review and personal communication, were employed for data collection and triangulation. All relevant data and information regarding the reform and three case study interventions were interpreted and analysed according to the thematic elements in the conceptual framework.

Social values determined changes in the UC plan in two steps: the development of coverage decision guidelines and the introduction of such guidelines in benefit package formulation. The former was guided by process values, while the latter was shaped by different content ideals of stakeholders and policymakers. Analysis of the three interventions suggests that in allocating its resources to subsidise particular services, the UC authority took into account not only cost‐effectiveness, but also budget impacts, equity and solidarity. These social values competed with each other and, in many instances, the prioritisation of benefit candidates was not led solely by evidence, but also by value judgments, even though transparency was recognised as an ultimate goal of reform.

The study findings indicate room for improvement and for future research – the current conceptual framework is inadequate to capture all the crucial elements which influence health prioritisation, as well as their interactions with social values.

The paper fills a gap in literature as it enhances understanding of the effects of social value judgments in real‐life health prioritisation.

The paper summarizes data from 12 countries, chosen to exhibit wide variation, on the role and place of public participation in the setting of priorities. The purpose of this paper is to exhibit cross-national patterns in respect of public participation, linking those differences to institutional features of the countries concerned.

The approach is an example of case-orientated qualitative assessment of participation practices. It derives its data from the presentation of country case studies by experts on each system. The country cases are located within the historical development of democracy in each country.

Patterns of participation are widely variable. Participation that is effective through routinized institutional processes appears to be inversely related to contestatory participation that uses political mobilization to challenge the legitimacy of the priority setting process. No system has resolved the conceptual ambiguities that are implicit in the idea of public participation.

The paper draws on a unique collection of country case studies in participatory practice in prioritization, supplementing existing published sources. In showing that contestatory participation plays an important role in a sub-set of these countries it makes an important contribution to the field because it broadens the debate about public participation in priority setting beyond the use of minipublics and the observation of public representatives on decision-making bodies.