Disclaimer: This video was shot on 6th February, three days before the Angel Tax on Start-Up funding unraveled with #ShutdownIndia twitter trend. This episode discusses the problem with Angel Tax too.
Out of the total budget outlay of a little over INR 27 lakh crores, health got a little over INR 63,000 crores. While it features as the 14th item with maximum allocation, it is still 1/5th of the defense budget. Why should it matter? Because, India with little less than 16% of the global population, still bears the burden of 20% of the global morbidity. It has 70% of the health expenditure borne out of pocket by citizens, and 7% Indian fall back into poverty thanks to soaring health expenses.
In this episode, Biraj Swain, Senior Fellow-Kalam Institute of Health Technology, takes a deep dive into health and health technology in Budget 2019, with Richa Chintan-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, Dr. Sudhashree-Karnataka Health Promotion Trust, Rajiv Nath-Association of Indian Medical Device Industry and Dr. Jitendar Sharma-CEO and Managing Director-Andhra Med Tech Zone.
They discuss why health has been getting the Cinderella treatment, or is it the entire social sector. How, in the era of “Start-Up India”, “Make In India”, the research budget allocation is grossly under-funded. Research in health technology barely gets INR 300 crores but needs INR 1800 crores of public investment.
There is debate amongst the panelist if Ayushman Bharat, an insurance-based model of care is the way to go for India, or does it offer an option for a hybrid model where the state and the private sector, both deliver directly and via risk-pooling. Seems, not just research, even Reproductive Child Health, TB, haven’t got their fair share either, in Budget 2019.
They passionately discuss if there is a war on data, or the credibility of data will be restored by restoring the autonomy of NSSO and other statistical commissions. They discuss the reasons for PRATHAM’s ASER credibility and should independent surveys with third-party checks be the way to go forward to stop government interference with data. They also discuss the need to move beyond data to analysing and using the data for better healthcare delivery (and not just writing papers and publishing).
