Real per capita health spending in India was the highest in 2019-20 since 2004-05, the earliest year for which this data is available, according to Union health ministry’s National Health Accounts (NHA) estimates published on Tuesday, with the government’s share increasing sharply.
NHA provides systemic description of the financial flows in India’s health system.
While over half of this growth came from the government spending more on health, households’ out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending was also at a three year high in the fiscal year just before the pandemic. The government and household contribution to health spending was 41.4% and 47.1% respectively in 2019-20, the highest and lowest by the two in the NHA series.
“One of the significant parts is that the percentage of health expenditure incurred by government has increased significantly. In per capita terms, in 2014-15, the government used to spend almost ₹1100 per capita and in 2019-20, it has increased to ₹2014, which is almost double. In terms of percentages, it was 1.13% of GDP earlier and has become 1.35% of GDP in 2019-20,” said Union health secretary, Rajesh Bhushan.
India’s total health bill was ₹655800 crore in 2019-20, according to health ministry NHA estimates. This is 9.96% more than in 2018-19, the fastest year-on-year growth since 2013-14. While NHA estimates are also available for 2004-05, they are available consistently only since 2013-14.
