-The Hindu Much of the National Health Policy document reads like a report of health issues and systemic challenges, and is sorely wanting on policy detail Health impoverishment - falling into poverty due to health care costs - affects 63 million individuals in India every year. This is a damning statistic, especially when read with the fact that 18 per cent of all households face catastrophic health expenditures (health expenditure greater than...

-Frontline Kerala is facing a situation where health care costs are leading more and more people, not just low-income families, to financial distress. KERALA is once again drawing attention to itself, this time for a persistent trend of a large number of households being pushed into financial ruin because of the expenses incurred for medical care. Several studies have now found evidence for the many facets of this worrying development in a...

-The Indian Express Universal health coverage (UHC) is at the heart of the government's healthcare agenda. The 12th Five Year Plan targets a long-term goal of UHC where "each individual would have assured access to a defined essential range of Medicines and treatment at an affordable price, which would be entirely free for a large percentage of the population". But this year's reduced budgetary allocation raises troublesome questions about its ability...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley today promised gifts for children, women, patients and the poor but slashed his government's funding across the social sectors. Budget outlays for education, health, rural development, social justice and women and children have fallen sharply or remain close to the outlays these sectors had received last year. The allocation for children under the women and child development ministry witnessed the sharpest fall from last...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) Press Release   New Delhi: The direction indicated by the Finance Minister's Budget Speech in general and that of the taxation policies in particular indicate a quantum leap being taken towards market fundamentalism. In the absence of any increase in the overall spending capacity of the government (Centre and States combined), the steps for fiscal decentralization (from Centre to States) have been constrained, implying only...