Aditi Tandon / New Delhi ? ? ?
The Tribune
At a time when the Planning Commission is moving towards insurance-based financing of the proposed Universal Health Coverage Scheme in the 12th five-year plan, the World Health Organisation today reiterated that tax-based financing was a better model than insurance-based financing.
In response to a Tribune query on the sidelines of a conference held to discuss WHO-India Country Cooperation Strategy 2012-2017, WHO India Representative Nata Menabde said, ?Our recommendation to the UHC consultation was tax-generated revenue for financing the scheme. The WHO supports tax-based financing of the national health package and believes it to be the most effective.?
The comments come on the eve of a meeting the Planning Commission is holding on September 15 to take a final call on what the UHC would look like.
The commission was under severe criticism recently for having proposed a meagre hike in public financing of health ? just 1.8 per cent of the GDP as against 2.5 per cent which the expert group set up to recommend the structure of UHC made.
The WHO today batted for improved public funding of health in India with Menabde saying, ?Health financing is a very important dimension of UHC. We are trying to make clear and illustrate to the Planning Commission that health investments bring benefits to economic development and are, therefore, not expenditures in that sense of the word. Though overall health expenditures in India are not catastrophic at 5 per cent of the GDP, the fact remains that only 1.3 per cent of the total health expenditure is the public financing component. This must improve.?
India has 21 per cent of the global disease burden as against 17 per cent of the global population. Whereas in 2008, 52 per cent of all mortality in India was on account of communicable diseases, the scenario is set to change drastically with cardiovascular disease deaths set to double by 2030.
WHO projections are that as against 2.7 million deaths due to cardiovascular diseases in 2008, there will be 4 million deaths in 2030; cancer deaths will increase from 7.3 lakh in 2008 to 1.5 million in 2030.
Considering bulk treatment seeking in India is in the private sector which is unregulated, WHO India chief today pointed out that India?s private health sector was represented by five-star hospitals which need regulation.
?India?s private sector is represented by five-star hospitals. Their services need to be regulated. There is over-diagnosis in these hospitals, there is misuse of technology,? Menabde said, urging the states to ratify the Central legislation ? Clinical Establishments Registration Act, which seeks to put in place uniform treatment protocols so that the cost of each service and treatment is fixed and all private hospitals charge the consumers uniformly.
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