The Economic Survey has backed the 2017 National Health Policy’s pitch for more than doubling public spending on healthcare, arguing that it can halve the out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure on healthcare for Indians. The Survey has also proposed the establishment of a regulator to mitigate the market failures stemming from “information asymmetry” that leads to “suboptimal” quality of care in the healthcare sector.
Comparing India’s spend on healthcare with countries like Indonesia, China and Thailand, the Survey concluded the country could “substantially” reduce the OOP share of overall healthcare spends to 30 per cent from 60-65 per cent currently. This would happen if it increased its public spending on healthcare from 1 per cent of GDP, at present, to 2.5-3 per cent.
This is important, given that India has “one of the highest” levels of OOP…
