Editorial
A welfare state is where its people breathe easy. It is also one where economic development matches with welfare programmes. It has been a matter of debate whether the life of the common man in this country has improved over the years, despite introduction of several welfare schemes including the Union Government’s recently introduced Food Security Scheme. An indication to the hopeless scenario comes from the draft of the National Health Policy which is currently being shaped up. As per the Centre’s own admission, as high as 63 million people face poverty — or excessive deprivation — and are hard-pressed in their lives due to unaffordable, “catastrophic” expenditure over healthcare requirements. The scenario is worsening everyday and it is officially acknowledged. Families facing such a critical situation were of the order of 18 per cent of the total households in 2011-12, as against 15 per cent in 2004-05. The government says a plan is underway to ensure universal access to affordable health care. How long this will take, how the funds would be managed for a nation of 1.2 billion plus and how effective this plan would be remain to be seen.
Looking at the scene critically, it may be noted that in recent years health care costs have multiplied manifold. This may be because of the arrival of big sharks in the private sector and matching disruption of services at government hospitals across the country. The Nehruvian-era socialism, now being critically viewed, had its positive sides. Like the introduction of a generally free and sound health care system, wherein doctors and other medical professionals functioned with a sense of dedication and upheld the Hippocratic Oath. Although, it is also true that the population has exploded beyond imagination since that time.
Today, the scenario is best exemplified in reports like “as high as 50 per cent of the surgeries are avoidable as a means of recovery from ailments.” The pointer is to private hospitals like Apollo, many of which wear the tag of ‘super specialty’ by flaunting expensive equipment and infrastructure while failing when it comes to doctors and treatment. In other words, people and families in distress are taken for a ride. Those who have money spend it hard. And those who can ill afford medical luxuries, beg, borrow and sell to treat loved ones. Even so, many patients fall victim to medical negligence and bullying by big hospitals.
What is touted as a relief, the many health insurance schemes that are in vogue mainly for the upper and middle income groups, have worsened the overall situation in terms of medical costs. Inflated billing has become a norm rather than an exception in many private hospitals. Those who do not have a health insurance card too face the brunt in many ways, if they aren’t watchful. Fact is, mischief is built into every system and it is just a question of how to work one’s way into exploiting a situation. So with health insurance schemes.
The Food Security Scheme was introduced with a slogan that the poor cannot be left hungry. Poverty alleviation is a motto that the nation has been seeking to achieve since Independence but with marginal success. Today, cheap rice schemes are of help to people from the lower strata of society. But it hasn’t made those people economically stronger. Free universal health scheme, once introduced, can go a step further in alleviating the sufferings of people, especially the needy. But question remains as to where the government plans to find the funds to back such ambitious schemes.
Systems, if not governments, can crumble under the weight of their own overzealousness. Massive funds being diverted to welfare schemes such as these would result in what is a predictable scenario. Something that we are already witnessing. Namely the developmental process stopping in its tracks. And the already heavily debt-ridden nation looking out for funds from abroad to keep the system going. Not a happy scenario in the long run.
