Articles by Anant Phadke

Anant Phadke writes:

Healers or Predators? Healthcare Corruption in India edited by Samiran Nundy, Keshav Desiraju and Sanjay Nagral, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018; pp 657, ₹ 750.

The draft national health policy suggests that public health services should be held accountable according to commercial principles, which would have a deleterious impact on public health.

The National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy 2012 has a new method for determining the price ceiling, called a market-based pricing mechanism. This is problematic, to say the least. It can create the illusion of regulating prices without actually doing so, and will have no impact on other members of the same therapeutic class outside the National List of Essential Medicines or on existing fixed dose combinations, rational and irrational. It will reduce the prices of certain top brands, but not close potential escape routes for good. It will also leave a lot of useful life-saving drugs used in tertiary care outside the price control basket.

The Planning Commission's High Level Expert Group has given its provisional progress report on developing a framework for universal health coverage. Its mandate is to suggest a strategy for universal health coverage rather than a universal healthcare system. The latter would be geared to a progressive socialisation of healthcare based on human rights. Universal coverage, on the other hand, would mean a system that will continue to be dominated by the logic of the market. But all said and done, the Planning Commission's group has done a good job and has tried to keep its focus on socialisation of healthcare.