The Health Ministry today released the National Health Accounts NHA estimates for India 2022-23. The report indicates an increase government expenditure on healthcare since 2013-14, reflecting sustained efforts to strengthen public investment in the health sector. It said, the share of Government Health Expenditure in the country’s Gross Domestic Product GDP has risen from 1.15 per cent in 2013-14 to 1.43 per cent in 2022-23. As per the new GDP series with base year 2022-23, Government Health Expenditure is 1.48 per cent of GDP. Similarly, Government Health Expenditure’s share in General Government Expenditure has increased from 3.78 per cent to 4.89 per cent over the same period, underscoring the growing prioritisation of health in public spending. In per capita terms, Government Health Expenditure has increased nearly 2.7 times, from one thousand 42 rupees to two thousand 786 rupees between 2013-14 and 2022-23. The share of Government Health Expenditure in Total Health Expenditure has increased by almost 15 percentage points, from 28.6 per cent in 2013-14 to 43.7 per cent in 2022-23.
The decadal trend of increased Government Health Expenditure has resulted in overall reduction in the Out-of-Pocket Expenditure as a share of the Total Health Expenditure. The efforts of the Centre, specifically during the COVID pandemic, were noteworthy. To address the emergency COVID pandemic situation, Government increased the health expenditure significantly to 1.84 per cent of GDP in 2021-22 towards managing the pandemic situation and mass COVID vaccination programme, that was largest in the world. Given these additional spending by the government as a one-time measure, Out-of-Pocket Expenditure as percentage of Total Health Expenditure during this period also declined to 39.4 per cent.
