Sansad TV Perspective: Decoding Budget: 2022-23: Spending on Health

In the series Sansad TV Perspective, we bring you an analysis of the discussion featured on the insightful programme ‘Perspective’ on Sansad TV, on various important topics affecting India and also the world. This analysis will help you immensely for the IAS exam, especially the mains exam, where a well-rounded understanding of topics is a prerequisite for writing answers that fetch good marks.

In this article, we feature the discussion on the topic: Decoding Budget: 2022-23: Spending on Health

Anchor: Teena Jha

Participants: 

1. Preeti Sudan, Former Health Secretary, GoI
2. Bishnu Panigrahi, Group Head, Fortis Healthcare
3. Commander Navneet Bali, Co-Chairman Healthcare Council, ASSOCHAM

Context: 

The Union Budget 2022-23 has invited a considerable focus on the health sector and the avenues of development in the healthcare services in terms of effectiveness, affordability and accessibility. The discussion intended to decode the provisions of the recently released budget to deal with the issues in the healthcare sector addressing the requirement of policy interventions in the upcoming days. 

Glimpses of Budget on Healthcare:

• There has been a hike of 16% on budget allocation on health compared to that in Budget 2021-22. 
• A bulk of the allocated budget on health will be transferred to the Department of Health and Family Welfare.
• About ₹3200 crores have been allocated to the Department of Health Research. 
• The issue of mental health has been addressed significantly with the announcement of the National Tele-Mental Health Programme.
• The National Tele-Mental Health Programme will include a network of 23 tele-mental health centres of excellence having NIMHANS as the nodal centre and IIT-Bangalore providing technical support. 

Image Source: PIB

Delving Deeper:

• The revised estimates of the total health expenditure budget have increased 0.23% which is perceived as a shift to a post-pandemic phase. 
• Reduction in the allocation for vaccination conveys that the government has already administered adequate jabs. 
• The Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission will offer a farsighted vision preparing the country for future challenges. The Ayushman Bharat cards have benefited the disadvantaged section of society through more than 80 thousand health and wellness centres. 
• There has been an increase of over 7% in the allocation towards the National Health Mission. 
• The health infrastructure mission will experience an increment from  ₹315 crore to  ₹978 crores. 
• PM Swasthya Suraksha Yojana has been furthered to improve the quality of medical education in the country with an increase in allocated funds for running the welfare activities. This will also ramp up the building of hospitals. 
• A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare observed the need to speed up the construction process of healthcare facilities under PM Swasthya Suraksha Yojana ensuring better usage of the funds. The Committee also recommended stronger monitoring to check the filling up of vacancies in AIIMS. 
• Efforts have been made to facilitate the private players and start-ups in healthcare covering the tier-2 and tier- 3 cities with advanced services. 
• There has been a significant increase in consumption of digital healthcare services and will continue to rise in the post-pandemic times. 
• A National Digital Health Ecosystem platform will be introduced to provide digital registries of health providers and facilities, unique health identity, consent framework and universal access to health facilities. 
• 200,000 anganwadis will be upgraded to adopt digital delivery of healthcare services. 

The shortfalls:

• Several analysts opined that the modest allocation of funds towards the healthcare sector would make it challenging for the government to achieve its target of spending 2.5% of the GDP in public healthcare by 2025. Many anticipated a larger share of the GDP allocated for health. 
• There have been signals of disappointment in the healthcare manufacturing fraternity as there has not been any significant boost offered to the domestic manufacturing of medical devices. The situation becomes more alarming as 80-85% of the manufacturing industry is import dependent. 
• A lot more was expected from the budget in terms of strengthening the healthcare workforce. 
• There is a sharp decrease in the share of National Health Mission in the total health budget from 48% to 42%. This is an issue of primary essence as opposed to the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission that suggested a 67% share of primary healthcare in the total health budget. 
• Higher resource requirements for primary care can be determined from the demands of the states to the central government. The central allocation for the National Health Mission has been 60-70%. By merging the components of the mission into new schemes like the National Health Programme and National Urban Health Mission, it has become difficult to track data.
• Despite an increase in the insurance-based schemes like PM Jan Arogya Yojana, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and Senior citizens health insurance scheme, there exists inadequacy of funds to cover more people.
• The interests of individuals belonging to the unorganised sector and those who are major victims of out of pocket expenditure have been neglected. 
• Funds for disaster preparedness, responsiveness and emergency medical services have been stagnant with the allocation of ₹130 crores. 

Ways for a healthy future:

• Experts mandate a proper roadmap for emboldening disease surveillance systems involving multiple sectors to better manage diseases. In this context, the programme of the government like the ‘One Health Programme’ needs to progress with effective implementation. 
• The initiative taken by the government to tackle the issues of mental health which historically has a stigma attached to it is a game-changer announcement of the budget that will travel a long distance, according to the experts.
• A mission mode approach of initiatives like the PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission will result in the proper development of infrastructure along with better primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare services. 
• The proposed digital healthcare system can be successfully implemented if the components of welfare schemes are integrated with it making it accessible and affordable to a larger percentage of the population. This will carve out landmark progress in terms of tracking diseases and health economics with transparency in the transaction processes.  
• In order to develop a futuristic system in the healthcare sector which is disaster-resilient, much more emphasis on resource allocation to industries is expected. 
• Overall, the Budget on health has been inferred as a growth-oriented budget with key ingredients of policies and welfare schemes that serve the purpose of playing a transformative role towards the establishment of an inclusive healthcare ecosystem. 

Read more summaries of Perspective in the link.

Perspective: Decoding Budget 2022-23:- Download PDF Here