Why has there been a decline in Out-of-Pocket Expenditure on healthcare in India? Discuss the implications of increased public healthcare spending. (Answer in 150 words)

The out of pocket expenditure refers to the amount of money spent by individuals out of their own finances for health care. It has decreased from 60% in 2019-15 to 29% in 2022-23. Reasons for decline of OOP Pocket expenditure: (1) Increased government spending on health care - Gross health expenditure increased from 1.18 to 1.86% of GDP (2) Increased insurance penetration among people. Example: PM Jan Arogya Yojana - now extended to older citizen (3) Increasing availability and access to public health care due to improvement in facilities. Example: Increase in number of AIIMS hospital from 1 in Delhi to more than 1,5000 (4) Increased performance in health indicators like waiting time, attending and UTI/IMR improving overall health. Example: Outcome published by NFHS-1 Decentralised reduction of cost to purse public adoption of disease prevention. Implications of increased public health care spending along with private participation will help create a 'Swasthya Bharat'