The Indian healthcare scenario presents a spectrum of different landscapes. At one end of the spectrum are high tech medicare mostly for urban Indians. At the other end are the remote reaches of rural India trying desperately to live up to their identity as health subcenters.
However, the subject matter of this blog is to discuss the health care cost in India or how can India afford the cost of increasing healthcare.
The private sector is the dominant user in the healthcare in India. Almost 80% of healthcare expenditure comes from the pockets of households. The problem is due to the lack of regulation in the private sector there is a consequent variation in quality and costs of services. The public sector on the other hand offers healthcare at low or no cost but is perceived as being unreliable and therefore generally is not the first choice, unless one cannot afford private care.
The solutions to the problem of affordability and quality of healthcare lie on government strategies, policies, direction and initiatives.
Although much has been done in last 10 years to improve healthcare in India but still Government expenditure on health must urgently be scaled up very high which will translate into the much-needed infrastructure boost in the rural and marginalized areas and hopefully to better availability of healthcare– services, infrastructure and personnel at low or no cost. The newly introduced AYUSHMAN BHARAT SCHEME and NATIONAL HEALTH MISSION PROGRAM is very useful till they are carefully rolled out, ensuring that the smallest member of the target population is enrolled and understands what exactly the scheme means and the procedures to avail the benefit.
The government on the other hand should also encourage private equity in health care infrastructure and training by introducing special subsidy schemes and tax breaks for business promoters in this sector. Further the excluded population from the AYUSHMAN BHARAT SCHEME and NATIONAL HEALTH MISSION PROGRAM should get orientation on the financial advantage of having a health insurance with insurance companies. The government should compulsorily direct the Insurance companies to conduct such orientation regularly through paid Certified trainers. The companies should further direct the companies to recruit well educated, certified and professional people to deal with health insurance cover. The professionalism at this level should be encouraged to grow the number of insured (to take the benefits of law of large numbers) and also to reduce the bad faith claim from insurance claim corpus which will make the insurance premium more affordable in future.
At last, and not the least, a consciousness of cost needs to be built into the healthcare sector, from the smallest technician to the highest-level medical practitioners. Wasteful expenditure, options which demand high spending, unnecessary medical tests and procedures should be avoided. The average medical student should be exposed to issues of cost of care during the course. Exposing young minds to issues of economics of healthcare will hopefully bring in a realization of the enormity of the situation, and the need to address it in whatever way possible.
By CFP Amit Kumar Jain
