Public Health Insurance: Reducing Poverty or Access to Equitable Health Care?

Tax-financed public health insurance programs are a newer, but increasingly important form of social policy across developing countries, including India. With the scope of stemming the flow of people into poverty, public health insurance focuses on the vulnerable and provides them an avenue to seek quality health care without incurring exorbitant costs. Although enrollment in the program and its effectiveness in reducing out-of-pocket health expenditures remain low, it is expected that the importance of health insurance will increasingly become recognized everywhere. As the demand for health care increases, the key to its effectiveness could reside in the prioritizing of health as an important policy goal—recognizing health as a citizenship “right,” increasing budgetary allocation for health, improving the quality of health care infrastructure, and putting into place effective regulations to check unscrupulous practices by private health care providers—with the scope of equitable access to universal health care and overall improved health outcomes.