For health, you needn’t have wealth

Countries that have managed ‘universal healthcare for free’ through taxation have three things in common. They are invariably small countries with a high tax-to-GDP ratio of more than 30% and spend more than 10% of GDP on healthcare.

India is the world’s most populous country with a tax-to-GDP ratio of 11.70% and spends 3.16% of the GDP on healthcare. The government’s contribution is 1.28% and out-of-pocket health expenditure is 1.52% of GDP.  We can’t expect the government to enhance budgetary allocation to healthcare significantly.