Greater public spending on health needed for universal cover: Experts

Government expenditure on health is key to achieving universal health coverage for any country, experts said at the World Health Summit’s Regional Meeting on Friday.

Ajay Tandon, Lead Economist at the World Bank, highlighted that economic recovery post-COVID-19 has been uneven across countries. He underscored the importance of public financing in healthcare, stating that no country in the world has achieved UHC through private financing alone.

“Some countries have rebounded from the shocks of Covid. India by 2030, in per capita will be 70 % higher than what it was in 2019. The South Asia region is struggling; Sri-Lanka, Afghanistan are the examples. When Covid hit, economies contracted and so did the government revenues. But government spending went up for health spending,” he said.

Tandon said India and Indonesia’s out of pocket share spending is improving. He said India’s PM-JAY health insurance scheme is expanding to include private in-patient care which other countries could emulate.

“While medicines and diagnostics have a big share of what causes out of pocket expenditure across Asia, private in-patient care really pushes people towards catastrophic expenditure. It is public financing that is a key for universal health coverage. India’s PM-JAY is expanding to include private in-patient care which other countries in the South-East region could emulate,” he added.

Director Health System Department, World Health Organisation (WHO) South East Asia, Manoj Jhalani remarked that financial protection in health remains a persistent and pressing challenge.

“In 2019, 326 million people in the WHO SEARO region faced catastrophic health expenditure. 133 million were impoverished on account of out of pocket spending the same year. This is something that needs to change,” he said.

India spends 1.84% of GDP and is steadily moving towards the target of 2.5%.

India