Universal health coverage in India

During its 12^th plan India committed to undertake upto three UHC pilots in each state to pave the way for scaling up of Universal Health Coverage across the country. It was constituted by the Planning Commission of India in October 2010 to provide easily accessible and affordable health care to all Indians. The paper tries to examine the exiting health finances schemes and the health scenario in India. The results obtained from the study are: the existing health fiannces schemes sponcered by government are The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) and Aarogyasri or NTR Vaidya Seva (Only in Andhra Pradeh); the NFHS-4 data on both rural and urban India made clear that sill there is a gap to achieve the universal health for India; the quality of care in public health care centres is found not so great because of insufficient funds results in increase demand of private healthcare centres; due to lack of financial incentives for medical care at public health centres and the private facilities are highly ineffective in providing financial protection the out of pocket expenditure is found more; to achieve the universal health coverage, adequate fund and planning with standardized indicators is required. The paper concludes that by improving existing government health facilities and particularly, revamping the primary healthcare system could be the possible way to achieve universal health coverage. Health insurance schemes may be the supplement to this effort by implementing some tailored schemes for certain sections of populations for selective services.