Why India’s recent report on a fall in out-of-pocket health expenditure may not be accurate

On November 29, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released the National Health Accounts estimates for India. The Health Accounts is a globally accepted tool to describe the flow of funds in a country’s health system in a financial year. Its estimates provide a snapshot of the flow of funds in the country’s health system by financing sources, providers of healthcare and healthcare functions.

It allows health administrators to learn from past expenditures trends and improve planning and allocation of financial resources, thereby increasing efficiency and accountability. The estimates are useful only if they are comparable over time and across administrative areas like countries or across states.

The ministry provides stewardship in the production of the estimates in India. Earlier estimates of the National Health Accounts from the ministry are available for 2001-’02 and 2004-’05. Policy planners, researchers, academicians, organisations and state governments are dependent on the National Health Accounts, to obtain reliable and comparable estimates of health spending in India.

What estimates showed

The most salient feature publicised by the ministry during the recent release of the National Health Accounts estimates is the rise in government contribution to the total health expenditure from 29% in 2013-’14 to 41% in 2017-’18, leading to a decline in household out-of-pocket expenditure…

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