Health care system
The private healthcare sector is responsible for the majority of healthcare in India. Most healthcare expenses are paid out of pocket by patients and their families, rather than through insurance. This has led many households to incur Catastrophic Health Expenditure (CHE) which can be defined as health expenditure that threats a household's capacity to maintain a basic standard of living. As per a study, over 35% of poor Indian households incur CHE which reflects the detrimental state in which Indian health care system is at the moment.With government expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP falling over the years and the rise of private health care sector, the poor are left with fewer options than before to access health care services. Private insurance is available in India, as are various through government-sponsored health insurance schemes. According to the World Bank, about 25% of India's population had some form of health insurance in 2010. A 2014 Indian government study found this to be an over-estimate, and claimed that only about 17% of India's population was insured.Public healthcare is free for those below the poverty line.
Plans are currently being formulated for the development of a universal health care system in India, which would provide universal health coverage throughout India.
Public and private healthcare
According to National Family Health Survey-3, the private medical sector remains the primary source of health care for 70% of households in urban areas and 63% of households in rural areas.[6] Reliance on public and private health care sector varies significantly between states. Several reasons are cited for relying on private rather than public sector; the main reason at the national level is poor quality of care in the public sector, with more than 57% of households pointing to this as the reason for a preference for private health care. Most of the public healthcare caters to the rural areas; and the poor quality arises from the reluctance of experienced health care providers to visit the rural areas. Consequently the majority of the public healthcare system catering to the rural and remote areas relies on inexperienced and unmotivated interns who are mandated to spend time in public healthcare clinics as part of their curricular requirement. Other major reasons are distance of the public sector facility, long wait times, and inconvenient hours of operation. The study conducted by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics in 2013, across 12 states in over 14,000 households indicated a steady increase in the usage of private healthcare facilities over the last 25 years for both Out Patient and In Patient services, across rural and urban areas.
Following the 2014 election which brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi to office, Modi's government unveiled plans for a nationwide universal health care system known as the National Health Assurance Mission, which would provide all citizens with free drugs, diagnostic treatments, and insurance for serious ailments. In 2015, implementation of a universal health care system was delayed due to budgetary concerns.
Rural Health
The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in April 2005 by the Government of India. The goal of the NRHM was to provide effective healthcare to rural people with a focus on 18 states which have poor public health indicators and/or weak infrastructure.[10] It has 18,000 ambulances and a workforce of 900,000 community health volunteers and 178,000 paid staff.
Only 2% of doctors are in rural areas - where 68% of the population live.
Urban Health
The National Urban Health Mission as a sub-mission of National Health Mission was approved by the Cabinet on 1 May 2013. It aims to meet health care needs of the urban population with the focus on urban poor, by making available to them essential primary health care services and reducing their out of pocket expenses for treatment.
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