The rise of government-funded health insurance in India

Ila Patnaik, Shubho Roy () and Ajay Shah
Additional contact information
Shubho Roy: National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

Working Papers from National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

Abstract: India has experienced a remarkable proliferation of 48 Government Funded Health Insurance Schemes (GFHIS) from 1997 to 2018. We place the rise of this policy pathway in historical perspective. Under colonial rule, there was considerable importance placed upon public health as a local public good. After independence, the Bhore Committee build a paradigm of public sector health care, and the public health system degraded. In this environment, the political process faced a high disease burden coupled with a weak public health care system. This pressure led to the adoption of GFHIS as a convenient way forward. We identify four areas of concern in this new paradigm of Indian health policy: inefficient lack of focus upon public health, regulatory problems with private health care, weak regulation of health insurance companies, and fiscal risk.

Pages: 66
Date: 2018-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ias
Note: Working Paper 231, 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nipfp.org.in/media/medialibrary/2018/05/WP_231.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:npf:wpaper:18/231

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
Bibliographic data for series maintained by S.Siva Chidambaram ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).