Is Health Care expensive?

Health care cannot be expensive and will never be. It is only the sickness care that is becoming expensive. As we earn our wealth through employment or otherwise, we should earn our health through conscious living. When we say conscious, we mean one should be aware of his or her body, mind, intellect and possibly something deeper, soul or spirit. If one is preoccupied with world, no doubt world gives wealth but robs the health. As Great Master Dalai Lama once said ‘You spend all your health to earn wealth, but later you spend
all your wealth to preserve health’. A noble saying well understood, but ill practiced. Growing population, progressive urbanization, economic and target pressures, leave behind a person reeling under the rubble of modern world. Good balanced nutrition, regular exercises, yoga and importantly, good company would definitely provide the health care. So health care is never expensive. Unfortunately knowing this yoga masters, meditation centers, gyms, have made health care, paradoxically expensive. But a man of conscious
living needs no one as a guide.

Why has sickness care become expensive?. In 2004, 4.8 million (59.4 percent) of the estimated 8.1 million Indian deaths were due to NCDs (Non-Communicable Diseases, life style diseases etc). In 2004, assuming that all care-givers and sick individuals above the age of 15 years were productive, yielded an annual income loss from NCDs of approximately One Trillion Rupees as noted by the Economists. More than one-third of all income losses were due to CVD and hypertension.

It is important to note the observation that overall, these data confirm the important role that the private sector plays in the provision of healthcare services in India. What does this mean? The NCDs are chronic, the morbid squeal are innumerable, and procedures needed are technically demanding and labor intensive. On the top of it, the need of unequivocally outstanding expertise, all of which seem to be largely prevalent in the private sector. The modern medicine is heavily dependent on sophisticated technology. The innovations in medicine and the instrumentation automatically compel the care providers to upgrade the systems. The redundant instruments tragically remain inoperable. Hence, financial burden on the private sector unimaginably grows. The infrastructure costs are growing geometrically, managed only by well established centers.The label of Heath as Industry tragically results in doubling the establishment costs. So the sickness
care costs too are becoming, if not geometrically but arithmetically expensive and seem to become prohibitive for a citizen of average income. Many instruments are still imported; many consumables are still produced outside the country. In an ambiance of financial equations, undoubtedly average man suffers. But curiously, compared to costs internationally, the medical expenditure for complex procedures such as transplantations, in our country is extremely affordable. Increased subscription of health insurance, indigenization of instruments, a well architected health policy that helps all, can certainly change the scenario but, seems to be a distant possibility as of now.