Universal health coverage in India: Progress achieved & the way forward

To address health inequalities and improve health outcomes, an architectural correction in public healthcare system was made by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) through National Rural Health Mission, which was later redesigned as National Health Mission (NHM) to strengthen both rural and urban public health infrastructure, human resource capacity and service delivery. Evidence suggests that a dynamic interaction between three factors forces patients towards private sector in India: (i) healthcare provisioning dominated by private sector, (ii) high share of private expenditure as compared to public expenditure in THE, and (iii) scarcity of public services on account of deteriorated public health sector [11]. [...]it is critical to ensure that gatekeeping function of insurance regulators is up to the mark. [...]possibility of increase in households OOP expenditure cannot be ruled out with increased access because the product that is offered under AB-NHPM is geared towards secondary and tertiary inpatient care over comprehensive outpatient care.