India's government spending on public health nearly tripled over the past decade, and the financial burden on individual households fell as a result, according to a report by NDTV.
The report draws on official data showing that government health expenditure climbed from approximately 1.13 percent of GDP in 2014-15 to around 1.84 percent by 2023-24. At the same time, out-of-pocket spending by households, historically one of the highest in the world relative to total health expenditure, declined as a share of overall health costs.
Out-of-pocket spending is a key measure of how equitably a health system distributes financial risk. When households pay a large share of costs directly, poorer families are more likely to delay or skip care, fall into medical debt, or face catastrophic financial consequences from serious illness. A reduction in that burden, even a partial one, is seen by health economists as a marker of a system moving in a more equitable direction.
The increase in government spending has been driven in part by national programs aimed at expanding insurance coverage to lower-income populations. India's Ayushman Bharat program, one of the world's largest government-funded health insurance schemes, has extended coverage to hundreds of millions of people who previously had none.
The numbers still leave India below the spending levels of many comparable economies. Health advocates have long argued that the country needs to reach at least 2.5 percent of GDP in public health spending to meaningfully close gaps in access and quality. The current figures represent progress, but fall short of that benchmark.
The report does not address how the spending increases are distributed across states, which vary widely in health infrastructure and outcomes. Rural and urban populations in India also continue to face very different realities when seeking care, regardless of what national spending figures show.
