India's Healthcare Plan for the Poor: Put it on a Card
India's public health care system is in a state of crisis.
Time Magazine recently ran photos of hospitals swamped with patients and their families in a report that says India's "massive population" has led to "overloading systems where they do exist and aiding the spread of disease in the many places they don't." A Brookings Institution report says the rural medical practitioners who perform 80 percent of India's outpatient care "have no formal qualifications for it. They sometimes lack even a high school diploma."
But the Wall Street Journal reports that India's central government is stepping up with a new National Health Insurance Program. For just $1, India's poor can receive a card that entitles them to $700 of care at most public or private hospitals.
To enroll, families must make less than $100 per year and pay the $1 fee. To support the program the government will pay out $1 billion to insurance companies, who say their involvement will help them market to participants whose future income may turn them into paying customers. Already, about 1.5 million people have signed up, and plans for expansion are in the works.
While the use of the card is limited to care at hospitals, it still goes a long way to reduce the chance that medical debt will financially crush already-impoverished families. And with one-third of the world's poor living within its borders, India is right to address its health care challenge.
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Investment in India's Health on the Rise
In Andhra Pradesh, a public/private partnership was recently announced that will "[provide] a fleet of health care vans — mobile health units — that visit villages on designated days to deliver health care services to rural Indians, many of whom have never been seen by medical professionals before." Each month the MHUs will travel to 56 villages with paramedics, pharmacists and lab technicians on board and plan to expand the program extensively in the future.
India's Health Crisis
India is a highly visible example of how global markets have improved living conditions for some, while the rest of the country continues to battle extreme morbidity due to the burden of disease and shortages of food/water. The new health insurance card initiative by India’s government to address the growing Public Health crisis will help bring primary care to the country’s urban poor. However, the government should also expand similar programs in rural areas across the country. Due to the geographic limitations of India’s rural populations, providing primary health care via mobile health units is extremely important. Building out-patient clinics may also help alleviate the health crisis in rural areas. Furthermore, India’s urban cities also contain destitute neighborhoods and slum areas where people do not have the economic means to visit hospitals even if they are enrolled in the health insurance (card) program. Modes of transportation should also be considered in order to bring the urban poor to health centers. By ensuring outlets for the most destitute populations to receive basic health care, India will able to relieve the disease burden plaguing the country as it moves towards globalization and economic progress.
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