The govt. of Andhra Pradesh (a state in India) has pioneered a state backed insurance program several years ago with reasonable success (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarogyasri" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarogyasri</a>). The problem however with these programs is that corruption within the healthcare industry is still endemic and doctors create fake diagnoses and perform unnecessary surgeries on patients to get their reimbursements from Aarogya-sri. If this program is to be rolled out a national scale, the govt. needs to address the systematic corruption in the healthcare industry first.<p>That said, I think Aarogyasri was overall a huge success in my state and has saved millions of lives and I'm excited to see it being adopted at a national level.
Giving free healthcare is a good step, but the important question is how good will it be and how much will be covered.<p>Brazil has 100% of its population (210M people) covered by free, single-payer, universal healthcare, resulting in a life expectancy of 75 years (US is 79, Japan and Switzerland with 83 IIRC).<p>But your experience can vary dramatically. It all depends on how much money is actually being put on it (in healthcare-costs-PPP-adjusted $/capita).
A key paragraph from the article which better explains the finances behind this policy:<p><i>"The health care plan ... would offer 100 million families up ... $7,860, of coverage each year. That sum, while small by Western standards, would be enough to cover the equivalent of five heart surgeries in India."</i><p>It's much easier to provide universal healthcare, when medical costs are low. Finding ways to bring down costs in the US, would go a long way towards improving the healthcare situation here.
I might be sounding negative, but the current PM is known to be someone who just promises a million things. This is just a prop for 2019 because he has absolutely destroyed the economy and the RBI.<p>I seriously doubt if this will actually be implemented ever. This is the magic of India, They won't deny insurance, but when the people will go to create insurance, there will be some or the other issue with the system and they won't be able to apply for it.<p>Also the media is a sycophant of the govt so nobody will question it and on the exterior, it'll be shown that they did provide insurance although nobody got anything.
I just hope it works very well because it seems every year there is one new populist measure. There is already:<p>a. Food Security which provides food to nearly 2/3rd of the population or 820 million people.<p>b. Minimum Support prices for grains which was hiked in this budget. Farmers also get loan waivers.<p>c. National Rural Employment Guarantee which provides employment to over 100 million people
They say Proof is in the pudding.<p>I am wary of applauding before seeing how well this is implemented. India is known to come up with lot of big programs that make good rhetoric, but not all of them are implemented with equal amount of vigor or commitment.<p>I am sure part of the motivation may be to help next election cycle which is coming soon.
This is a blatant lie. The devil is in the details and the detail is there has been no specific funds allocated in the budget for this nor are there any specifics about how the funds will be allocated in the future.[1] This is just a vague expression of intent. Precisely the type that <i>every </i> politician will make when in desperate need of good will - exactly what Modi is in need of.<p>[1] thread about this <a href="https://twitter.com/Memeghnad/status/959026718722768896" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Memeghnad/status/959026718722768896</a>
>> The health care plan, part of the government’s 2018-19 budget presented on Thursday, would offer 100 million families up to 500,000 rupees, or about $7,860, of coverage each year.<p>Thats roughly $800B dollars, or over 30% of India's GDP. What am I missing? Most people won't participate?<p>EDIT: according to the article, the Finance Ministry has allocated $314 million (or 4 hundredths of a percent of the theoretical max total benefit). As in, the funding they acknowledge is non-existent.
I highly recommend reading this answer to understand the Indian budget better. I hope this helps clear a few questions. <a href="https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-see-the-union-budget-2018-19-presented-by-Arun-Jaitley/answer/Balaji-Viswanathan-2?share=e00f6859&srid=CQoI" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-see-the-union-budget-2018-1...</a>
To be read as - the elections are coming. Mr Modi is seeking a second term.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_elections_in_India" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_elections_in_India</a><p>NYT article to be read in tandem with this one<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-budget/with-elections-coming-up-indias-government-will-aim-to-woo-rural-voters-in-budget-idUSKBN1FH0GJ" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-budget/with-electio...</a>
This is a sham. There is no specific allocation for the same in the budget. State Governments have been instituting insurance cover for population for ages and it is available around the same quantum. Generally insurance in India like any other country has the effect of artificially inflating healthcare cost. India would do well to spend money on improving public health infrastructure instead.
Until the details are revealed, I won't buy this. It seems to have been introduced to take advantage of upcoming elections.<p>The reason I'm skeptical about this step is because there are simply no specific blueprint whatsoever. And with recent government implementations, their biggest failure turns out to be ambiguity. Good example is GST. After it's launch several month's ago, almost every big/small industry is finding it hard to get the specific details.<p>I highly doubt about government's ability to implement it. This insurance should have been given on basis of economical standing. Choosing a random 500M number is good for making headlines but again it is not clear on who will gain this insurance benefits?, what will be covered?, how to claim it? I foresee, "divide and rule" :p<p>On another note, please have a look at Sensex. It's near all time high. The reason behind such rally is not FII but DII. Infact, FII has actively removed over $20Bn since 2015. There was slight influx of FII money post two months of demonetisation but again outflow increased in following months. But still Sensex didn't crashed because of the counter balance from DII or read it as mostly mutual fund companies. Also, I had noticed an increased expenditure in mutual fund investment ads on TV and almost all types of media. And these ads were sponsored mostly by govt bodies and associations. There is nothing wrong to invest in mutual funds. But when I heard about long term and short term capital gains tax today, things got much clearer for me as to why DII raised some much cash in very short period of time.
To check the validity of above numbers, you can refer to sensex related stats on moneycontrol.com and check out the YoY sensex FII/DII activity. It has a very well explanatory chart about it.
For a population of 1.3 Billion this is less than half the population. Other countries cover 100% population with such schemes. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_health_insurance_coverage" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_health_in...</a>
TFA: “India’s government spent just 1.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product on health care in 2014, little changed as a proportion of the economy in 20 years, according to the World Bank. China, by contrast, spent 3.1 percent of its G.D.P. on health care in 2014; the United States spent 8.3 percent in the same year.”<p>CMS.gov: “U.S. health care spending grew 4.3 percent in 2016, reaching $3.3 trillion or $10,348 per person. As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.9 percent.”<p>World Bank puts total health care expenditure at 17.1% for the US in 2014 and 4.6% for India...<p>They must mean just US <i>government</i> spending, not counting private expenditure.<p><a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?end=2014&locations=US&start=1995&view=chart" rel="nofollow">https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?end=2014...</a>
Cheap, fast and great generally don’t go together. Depending on the problem, you have to pick either one or two but not all three. It will be interesting to see how this experiment pans out in India. I wholeheartedly wish success for them because this is something we have to put behind our back before we enter the next decade.
The article reads as if this is health insurance, however it uses both terms health care and health insurance. Those are entirely different from each other.<p>One believes that preventative care will increase health, limiting the need for procedures and pills. The other believes that one can pay a lower premium (possibly through the state), betting on getting sick. These are opposite of each other.<p>I'm not saying this is bad - just that people have to know what is being discussed, or inevitably people will be disappointed.
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India doesn't get it. Defending the world from terrorism is 1000x more important then basic health insurance. How can health insurance defend the people against suicide bombers? The only thing that can defend people from suicide bombers is the 1.5 Trillion dollar F-35, the greatest war plane ever made.
<i>to 500,000 rupees, or about $7,860, of coverage each year. That sum, while small by Western standards, would be enough to cover the equivalent of five heart surgeries in India.</i><p>If something like this is implemented, I'm curious to see what it does to prices - will a heart surgery continue to cost less than $2,000?<p>Healthcare seems like a supply problem to me, not a demand one. Where healthcare is affordable, demand should be stable year-to-year. It seems like what's needed is more doctors and devices, not more ways to pay.
in a lot of countries having a government provided health care system (with private if you wish to pay more for quicker/better) is Normal rather than a political idea that only 1 side is allowed to support.
India has 1,320m people. This headline is slightly concerning, given the caste system in place that engineers poverty. Who is paying for it and who is getting the benefit?
I can't see how India is going to afford this. As stated in another comment it could cost up to $800B dollars, which is 30% of India's GDP. If this causes India to have financial issues as a country, it's their own fault for not doing basic accounting and number crunching.
We got free healthcare in europe that i pay for with atrociously high taxes. Yet whenever i actually need to visit a doctor i always go to a private one.
I really dislike when professional journalists call it "free healthcare", this should really needs to stop. It's not free, half the country will be paying for it with their taxes. In countries with public healthcare up to a third of their taxes expenditure goes to healthcare services, it's a significant expense and far from 'free'.<p>Journalists should really start using "public healthcare" or "public health insurance", otherwise they are making their agenda quite clear. And I say that in support of gov subsidized health insurance.
One of my uncles got paralyzed on his whole left side of body because of carelessness of govt hospital, lack of sanitation, corruption, and the general don't give a fuck attitude of the employees( if they cared to show up to work in the first place).<p>There is a running joke in India that "You can only go to a govt hospital" implication being that you'd not return alive.<p>I suspect this is another scheme concocted to gobble up public money via corruption. A gift that would keep giving for decades to come. For politicians to promise jobs in bureaucracy to their caste members.<p>Ofcourse, Nytimes piece mentions none of this in its effort to push "See even India has 'free' healthcare" ideology.