Much ink has been spilled in documenting the inadequacy of budgetary allocations for public health insurance, specifically for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the world’s largest publicly-funded health insurance (PFHI) scheme. There is a need to bring the ‘public’ back into the discourse on public health to highlight its present culture. What mattered more was the existing culture of health insurance — how it was perceived, practised and experienced in the everyday, local worlds of the enrolled households. A section saw health insurance as a bad omen, one that announced arrival of illness. The farther away we are from the card, the further we are from health problems.”Overall, while the discourse on a greater allocation to RSBY and enhancement of cost-effectiveness are important, a shift of emphasis is needed, bringing the ‘public’ back into the sphere of public health.

Source: The Hindu May 16, 2017 00:56 UTC