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India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

nytimes.com

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Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#11

Post by shubhamjain »

ethagknight wrote: post #7

>> The health care plan, part of the government’s 2018-19 budget presented on Thursday, would offer 100 million families up to 500,000 rupees, or about $7,860, of coverage each year. Thats roughly $800B dollars, or over 30% of India's GDP. What am I missing? Most people won't participate? EDIT: according to the article, the Finance Ministry has allocated $314 million (or 4 hundredths of a percent of the theoretical m…

Providing coverage doesn't mean that everyone would be availing the full amount every year. That's the fundamental principle of insurance business.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#13

Post by dv_dt »

thisisit wrote: post #4

I just hope it works very well because it seems every year there is one new populist measure. There is already: a. Food Security which provides food to nearly 2/3rd of the population or 820 million people. b. Minimum Support prices for grains which was hiked in this budget. Farmers also get loan waivers. c. National Rural Employment Guarantee which provides employment to over 100 million people

Universal healthcare is cast as a 'populist' measure in the US. But if you look at data of cost of healthcare for nations applying universal healthcare vs those who do not in developed nations, India might rationally look at it as an economic efficiency measure.

Agricultural supports also can be looked at with a political filter, but the US provides government back agricultural insurance as a positive economic measure. Otherwise there may be a dwindling population of farmers and farming companies and increased food instability. One could argue about private vs publically funding these stabilization and boosting measures but it's much simpler/stabler to provide some forms long term guarantees via gov't policy than hoping a private market does it and does it correctly (without wiping out or consuming their customers). Are all these measures the same? No, but you have to look deeper than populist bad, private markets good.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#14

Post by dominotw »

One of my uncles got paralyzed on his whole left side of body because of carelessness of govt hospital, lack of sanitation, corruption, and the general don't give a fuck attitude of the employees( if they cared to show up to work in the first place).

There is a running joke in India that "You can only go to a govt hospital" implication being that you'd not return alive.

I suspect this is another scheme concocted to gobble up public money via corruption. A gift that would keep giving for decades to come. For politicians to promise jobs in bureaucracy to their caste members.

Ofcourse, Nytimes piece mentions none of this in its effort to push "See even India has 'free' healthcare" ideology.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#15

Post by nodesocket »

I can't see how India is going to afford this. As stated in another comment it could cost up to $800B dollars, which is 30% of India's GDP. If this causes India to have financial issues as a country, it's their own fault for not doing basic accounting and number crunching.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#16

Post by shripadk »

dominotw wrote: post #14

One of my uncles got paralyzed on his whole left side of body because of carelessness of govt hospital, lack of sanitation, corruption, and the general don't give a fuck attitude of the employees( if they cared to show up to work in the first place). There is a running joke in India that "You can only go to a govt hospital" implication being that you'd not return alive. I suspect this is another scheme concocted to g…

Your point, though accurately describes most government run hospitals, misses the crucial piece of information: This insurance is for Private run hospitals not government run hospitals (which is free anyways).

Quoting from the article:

If passed by the Indian Parliament and properly funded, the new program would be a vast expansion of health coverage, allowing people to visit the country’s many private hospitals for needs as varied as cancer treatment and knee replacements. Although government-run hospitals are theoretically free for everyone, the waits are long, quality is poor and corruption is endemic.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#17

Post by shripadk »

ethagknight wrote: post #7

>> The health care plan, part of the government’s 2018-19 budget presented on Thursday, would offer 100 million families up to 500,000 rupees, or about $7,860, of coverage each year. Thats roughly $800B dollars, or over 30% of India's GDP. What am I missing? Most people won't participate? EDIT: according to the article, the Finance Ministry has allocated $314 million (or 4 hundredths of a percent of the theoretical m…

Quoting from the article:

As part of the budget proposal, Mr. Jaitley said the government would levy a surtax that would raise about $1.7 billion a year specifically for health care programs.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#18

Post by i0exception »

nodesocket wrote: post #15

I can't see how India is going to afford this. As stated in another comment it could cost up to $800B dollars, which is 30% of India's GDP. If this causes India to have financial issues as a country, it's their own fault for not doing basic accounting and number crunching.

That's like saying if everyone maxes out their health insurance, insurance companies will go out of business. In any given year, not everyone is going to use the ~$8000 allocated to them. Also, healthcare in India is cheap. $8000 goes a long way.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#19

Post by thisisit »

dv_dt wrote: post #13
thisisit wrote: post #4

I just hope it works very well because it seems every year there is one new populist measure. There is already: a. Food Security which provides food to nearly 2/3rd of the population or 820 million people. b. Minimum Support prices for grains which was hiked in this budget. Farmers also get loan waivers. c. National Rural Employment Guarantee which provides employment to over 100 million people

Universal healthcare is cast as a 'populist' measure in the US. But if you look at data of cost of healthcare for nations applying universal healthcare vs those who do not in developed nations, India might rationally look at it as an economic efficiency measure. Agricultural supports also can be looked at with a political filter, but the US provides government back agricultural insurance as a positive economic measur…

Isn't universal healthcare that all people and communities have the same access to healthcare? India's population is 1.3 billion and this says it will cover 500 million people. So, it doesn't cover all people and communities. It covers some part of the population.

Let's say Obamacare covered only a specific section of US what would have happened then?

To clarify my stand here, I am in favor of Universal Healthcare but not this.

Edit: I saw your edit on agriculture later. So, let me count that out too. We should do everything to support agriculture but the whole policy is skewed towards grains and every bump happens helps to ingrain the fact that grains good but vegetables bad. Do we really want that? So, I am in favor of a policy which works for all and not for specific sections which at least Indian laws tend to do.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#20

Post by shripadk »

nodesocket wrote: post #15

I can't see how India is going to afford this. As stated in another comment it could cost up to $800B dollars, which is 30% of India's GDP. If this causes India to have financial issues as a country, it's their own fault for not doing basic accounting and number crunching.

Yes it would cost $800B dollars if all 100 million insured fall ill at the same time and use the entire 5 lakh rupees allocated: which is highly unlikely. This is pretty much how insurance works in any part of the world. The only difference here is that it's allocated out of tax payer money.
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