India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has launched the world’s biggest universal healthcare experiment which will grant half a billion people the right to free health insurance overnight.
As of Sunday, roughly 500 million people living below the poverty line will no longer have to pay a single rupee for private hospital treatments that until now would have pushed such families into crippling debt.
Speaking at the official rollout in Ranchi, capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand, Modi claimed that a government scheme at “such a grand scale is not being carried out anywhere in the world” and, crucially, “will not have any distinguished plans on the basis of sect or caste”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The measures are Modi’s latest attempt to reform a public health system that faces a shortage of hospitals and doctors, “but critics say the scheme has been launched in a hurry for political gain and lacks adequate funds to support it” reports Reuters.
Senior doctors have voiced concerns that the scheme, dubbed “Modicare” by the Indian media, could undermine the very backbone of the country’s existing healthcare system and collapse within a year if poorly implemented.
“They fear it has been rushed through as a grand populist gesture before a general election due in spring 2019” says The Independent.
The government estimates more than 60% of the average family’s spending goes on medicines and healthcare, however, India currently spends only around 1% of its GDP on public health, among the world’s lowest, compared to a global average of 6%.
The Sydney Morning Herald says “nobody seems to be sure whether [the new scheme] will work or how much it will cost” but Vinod K. Paul, a paediatrician turned government official and the scheme's creator, said that most of the plan represents uncharted territory for the Indian government and that Modi had essentially signed a blank cheque to make it work.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
-
Arcturus: the new Covid variant surging in Indiafeature The highly infectious Omicron subvariant has also been reported in dozens of countries including the UK
-
Neanderthal gene ‘caused up to a million Covid deaths’
Speed Read Genetic tweak found in one in six Britons means cells in the lungs are slower to launch defences
-
India braces for Omicron ‘tsunami’
In Depth Curfews announced in Delhi and Mumbai as Covid-19 cases surge across the country
-
Is India ‘beating’ Covid – or facing a deadly third wave?
In Depth Hopes that virus has ‘exhausted itself’ challenged by experts as vaccine drive stalls
-
Legalising assisted dying: a complex, fraught and ‘necessary’ debate
Speed Read The Assisted Dying Bill – which would allow doctors to assist in the deaths of terminally ill patients – has relevance for ‘millions’
-
Covax: what’s gone wrong in the fight against vaccine nationalism?
feature Covid jabs-sharing scheme set to miss 2021 target for sending urgently needed doses to poorer countries
-
India facing US pressure to restart vaccine exports as devastating Covid wave recedes
feature Narendra Modi facing calls from Joe Biden to provide much-needed jabs to developing countries
-
Vaccinating children: it’s decision time for the health secretary as kids return to school
Speed Read Sajid Javid readying NHS England to roll out jab for children over 12, amid fears infections will rocket
