Since long, hypes have created on several healthcare schemes in India, by the successive Governments of different political dispensation. These attracted mostly positive vibes at the time of announcements. Nevertheless, as we move on, a vast majority of Indians continues to live in the midst of a health care crisis, as it were.
The National Health Policy 2017 also acknowledges this crisis as it writes: ‘growing incidences of catastrophic expenditure due to health care costs, which are presently estimated to be one of the major contributors to poverty.’
More recently, the May 31, 2018 article, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) continued to echo the similar concern. It reiterated, since both government funding and social health insurance contributions are insufficient to meet health care needs of households, over three-fourth of all healthcare payments are paid Out of Pocket (OOP) at the point of service delivery while medicine purchase (approximately 63 percent) account for the single largest component of these payments.
A major cause of catastrophe and impoverishment at the household level is undoubtedly the OOP expenditure on health care, including medicines. According to the above BMJ paper, 29 million households, implying about 38 million persons were pushed into poverty in the year 2011–2012, only because of this reason. Although, this study was based on a cross- sectional analysis of ‘National Sample Survey data, 1994–2014’, the public health expenditure in India has not shown any significant increase since then, either. On the contrary, the public spending in some health-related areas has come down in the recent years.…continue reading
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