Poverty, Human Development and Health Financing in India

Health constitutes one of the important determinants of human development. There are notable differentials across the Indian states in terms of human development, life expectancy and per capita incomes. Generally the HDI indices portray a better picture for better off states relative to their less well off counterparts. This study aims at analyzing the differentials across rich and poor states and across rich and poorer strata and rural urban segments of 19 major Indian states. The study indicates that besides individual health financing policies of the respective state governments, there are significant disparities even between rural and urban strata and rich and poorer sections of the society. These are indicated by high inequality coefficients and an emerging pattern of life style second generation health problems as well as levels of utilization of both preventive and curative care both in public and private sectors. Our results indicate that rather than more reliance on private sector an appropriate fine tuning of health financing strategy may be called for to mitigate partly the inequitable outcomes.