Cheap is also expensive here

When it comes to cost efficient healthcare facilities, India does gain credit. Although the cost of surgery in European countries like Germany and Switzerland is less than that in the US, it's still much higher as compared to India. One reason why medical tourism has grown in India is precisely this.

 

As per a recent study by the International Federation of Health Plans, a low cost procedure like CT scan on an average costs between $43-148 in India, the same costs $510-548 in the US, $272-354 in Germany and $319-425 in Switzerland. An expensive surgery like appendectomy costs about $254 in India while the same costs $3093 in Germany, $5840 in Switzerland and a significantly higher $13003 in the US. In high cost procedures, coronary artery bypass costs $4525 in India while it costs $16,578 in Germany, $25,486 in Switzerland and a whopping $67,583 in the US. Even the cost of hospital stay in the US is about 15 times higher than that in India. 

 

Despite the surgical costs being the lowest in the world, access to healthcare in India is quite low. One of the primary reasons for the same is low per capita income and wide income distribution of India. As per latest figures revealed by the CSO, India’s per capita income at current prices during 2011-12 is pegged at Rs 60,972 ($1225) – which is much lower as compared to the per capita income in Germany ($49,152), Switzerland ($67,464) and the US ($47,199). Moreover, as per CIA factbook, while the top 10 per cent of India’s population possesses 31.1 per cent of the nation’s income, the bottom 10 per cent has to do with a meagre 3.6 per cent. 

 

If we compare this with the cost of surgery, we have a clearer picture of the whole situation. While the cost per hospital stay in India consumes one’s entire per capita income, it is about 33 per cent for a US citizen and merely 12 per cent for a German and a lowly seven per cent for a Swiss citizen. Moreover, as per the World Bank, 69 per cent of Indians earn only $2 a day – a statistic the world knows by now. In the light of this fact, the cost of hospital stay seems well beyond the reach of most of the people in India.

 

The public spending on healthcare in India has been abysmal at about two per cent of GDP, while the out-of-pocket private expenditure is close to 78 per cent, which is outrageously higher than its neighbouring countries in the South Asia. As per a WHO report, 3.2 per cent Indians fall below the poverty line every year purely due to out-of-pocket medical expenses. The report reveals that close to 70 per cent of Indians spend their entire income on healthcare. Another reason behind such a grim situation is theabysmally low level of penetration of health insurance. Only five per cent of Indians are covered under any form of health insurance and less than 15 per cent of population is covered under some kind of health financing. Along with increasing the public spending on healthcare, what we need is an all encompassing health scheme which at least covers the people earning below $2 a day, if not the entire population. The existing health insurance policies are not only inaccessible but also least known to the poor.