Universal Health Assurance Mission

India face problems related to Infant mortality and Maternal mortality at a large scale. India also receives highest number of deaths in many acute diseases. There are various reasons for these problems but most important among them is that in India expenditure on health in very less percentage of the GDP. While in USA it is close to 14 percent in India it is close to five percent. Among this percentage government spending of health is close to one percentage only. This puts an added burden on the public to spent from their pocket. And in a country where large section of population is poor this burden is unsustainable. In last few decades economic growth of India has been very good but resultant public spending on the health sector has not improved much. The growth of India’s economy now permits this long overdue increase in public financing of health. Good health has implications for development of countryas well this has been recognized by government in recent initiatives like National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and a multitude of state sponsored health insurance schemes.

The social objectives of all of these schemes would need to be merged and their scope considerably expanded to create a valued and viable model of UHC in India. With this objective in mind The Government is considering to roll out a National Health Assurance Mission to reduce the hard earned money of poor population in India. A Group has been constituted for preparing a comprehensive background paper for this purpose. 
Every human body is a stakeholder in the health sector of India. That is why every individual must be motivated to a lead healthy life and thereby keep the burden on the public health infrastructure to the minimum.  Thankfully, we are a young nation. With 65 percent of the population under the age of 35, it should not be too difficult to make optimal use of every available Rupee. Public Health is in state list, which makes it a state subject, the Central Government can only provide a supplementing role to the efforts of the States/UTs. Under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) central government provide accessible, affordable and quality healthcare to the rural population. National Health Mission (NHM) was approved the central government which subsumes the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) and the National Rural Health mission objective of national health mission are also the same to provide universal access to equitable, affordable and quality health care services to all the population.

Now government has announced that it will bring Universal health assurance mission under which Universal health insurance mission would also be covered. An expert group under Dr. Ranjit Roy is formed to prepare a roadmap for Universal health assurance mission.

Projected Highlights of UHAM

Fifty essential drugs (in generic form) with a package of diagnostics and about 30 Ayush drugs will be made available to all citizens at government hospitals and health centres across the country

A solid package of preventive and positive health information will be made available to all citizens

The Universal Health Insurance component in UHAM is poised to become the world’s largest public health insurance programme which would be free for those below the poverty line and low-premium for the rest of the population.

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