Health Care around the World

Health provision varies around the world. Almost all wealthy nations provide universal health care (the US is an exception). Health provision is challenging due to the costs required as well as various social, cultural, political and economic conditions. Health care provision is incredibly complex and many nations around the world spend considerable resources trying to provide it. Many other rights and issues are related to health, inequality being an important one, for example. Education, gender equality and various other issues are also closely related. Viewed from the spectrum of basic rights, the right to health seems core.

At some point the debate becomes ideological rather than practical, and most nations that attempt universal health care, while often supporting individual freedoms see value in a society generally being healthy.

There are numerous ways such a system is provided, for example:
Government funded (tax paid) national systems
Government funded but user fees to top up (often at point of use)
Health insurance systems (funded by governments, citizens, or some mixture)
Decentralized, private systems run for profit or not for profit Different parts of the world have used different means for health care and generally, poorer nations have struggled to provide adequate health care.

The Indian Health Care System Scenario

India’s public health care system is patchy, with underfunded and overcrowded hospitals and clinics, and inadequate rural coverage. India still spends only around 4.2% of its national GDP towards healthcare goods and services (compared to 18% by the US). Additionally, there are wide gaps between the rural and urban populations in its healthcare system which worsen the problem. A staggering 70% of the population still lives in rural areas and has no or limited access to hospitals and clinics. Consequently, the rural population mostly relies on alternative medicine and government programmes in rural health clinics. One such government programme is the National Urban Health Mission which pays individuals for healthcare premiums, in partnership with various local private partners, which have proven ineffective to date.

In contrast, the urban centres have numerous private hospitals and clinics which provide quality healthcare. These centres have better doctors, access to preventive medicine, and quality clinics which are a result of better profitability for investors compared to the not-so-profitable rural areas.

The government’s low spending on health care places much of the burden on patients and their families, as evidenced by the country’s out-of-pocket (OOP) spending rate, one of the world’s highest. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), just 33 percent of Indian health care expenditures in 2012 came from government sources. Of the remaining private spending, around 86 percent was OOP.

Health Care around the World

The Indian Health Care System Scenario

Quick Link

Our Contacts