NAC to consider universal health coverage

This could be the final push for a universal health coverage in the country. The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) is all set to consider a report of the Planning Commission's high-level expert group on the matter at a meeting on February 17. An NAC thumbs-up could mean focused commitment for universal health coverage on the lines of the MNREGS and the Food Security Bill.

Two NAC members, development economist A K Shiv Kumar and SEWA's director of social security Mirai Chatterjee, were members of the expert group and are believed to have played a role in bringing the universal health coverage proposal on the radar of the NAC.

Health coverage is among the priorities the prime minister's office has set for the next few months, with the Health Ministry asked to formulate a roadmap by February 10.

However, as a senior ministry official points out, "Universal health coverage as a policy decision is yet to be taken. We are ready to start it on a pilot scale whenever we get the green signal but work on a roadmap can only start seriously when we are clear about the kind of financial commitments the government is willing to make and over what period."

The Plan panel group talks of raising healthcare expenditure to 2.5 per cent of GDP by the end of the 12th Plan and 3 per cent of GDP by 2022.

The idea is to provide equitable access to all to quality healthcare, including promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative. Every citizen would be entitled to a national health package whose contours will be decided by an expert group keeping in mind the country's health needs. The government is to be the guarantor and enabler for it, though not necessarily the only provider of these services. Beyond the universal coverage, people can take health insurance on their own.

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