Social Health Insurance in India

Social_Health_Insurance_an2.pdf (application/pdf Object) " Around 24% of all people hospitalized in India in a single year fall below the poverty line due to hospitalization (World Bank, 2002). An analysis of financing of hospitalization shows that large proportion of people; especially those in the bottom fourincome quintiles borrow money or sell assets to pay for hospitalization (World Bank, 2002) . This situation exists in a scenario where health care is financed through general tax revenue, community financing, out of pocket payment and social and private health insurance schemes. India spends about 4.9% of GDP on Regional Overview in South-East Asia health (WHR, 2002). The per capita total expenditure on health in India is US$ 23, of which the per capita Government expenditure on health is US$ 4. Hence, it is seen that the total health expenditure is around 5% of GDP, with
breakdown of public expenditure (0.9%); private expenditure (4.0%). The private expenditure can be further classified as out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure (3.6%) and employees/community financing (0.4%). It is thus evident that public health investment has been comparatively low. In fact as a percentage of GDP it has declined from 1.3% in 1990 to 0.9% as at present.
Furthermore, the central budgetary allocation for health (as a percentage of the total Central budget) has been stagnant at 1.3% while in the states it has
declined from 7.0% to 5.5%."
This actually represents a huge business opportunity. Anyone who taps this underserved market intelligently will do very well - as well as doing a lot of good !