A historic opportunity for universal health coverage in India

Abstract

The milestone of India's 75th anniversary of independence on Aug 15, 2022, offers an opportunity to reassert the country's commitment to realising universal health coverage (UHC). The first such effort predates independence, with the 1946 Bhore Committee report.1 India's colonial ruler, the UK Government, had simultaneously commissioned the Beveridge Report (1942), which led to the birth of the UK National Health Service in 1948. The Bhore Committee recommended a similar national health-care system for India with guiding principles that have stood the test of time (panel). However, the government of the newly independent India shelved the recommendations, focusing its scarce resources on addressing the consequences of 200 years of pillage by British colonisers and on the traumatic partition of the country. Successive governments sought to address some of the recommendations of the Bhore Committee in a piecemeal way. In 2019, India's health system ranked in the bottom third decile of 204 countries, with an effective UHC coverage index score of 47 out of 100

by contrast, the UK was in the highest decile with a score of 88.