Increase in Healthcare Expenditure: Expectations from The Union Budget 2019
After launching several schemes and initiatives aimed at all-round socio-economic development of the country, the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is back with a decisive mandate. The new financial year gives us a lot of hopes from the upcoming union budget. In recent times, we saw a number of schemes and policies being formulated towards the betterment of the healthcare industry in India. There is no doubt that we are witnessing the incredible transformation and development of the healthcare infrastructure in the country. Whether it is the adoption of cutting-edge digital tools or providing healthcare coverage to far-flung areas, the country is making giant strides.
The government had announced a promising initiative in the form of a national programme on AI, and we look forward to some action in this area. We hope the budget this year will focus on improving living conditions and giving more financial support to the public. Last year, while addressing the 2018 Partners Forum, it was stated that the health expenditure will be increased to 2.5% of the GDP by 2025.
It is a fact that the healthcare expenses in India are rising twice as fast as the rate of inflation. Being a country where these expenses are predominantly out of pocket, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the common people to afford proper healthcare. With this awareness, there is a need for the upcoming budget to take a number of measures to ease this burden. We expect the budget to increase medical reimbursement exemption, which needs to at least be doubled to provide some relief to the public.
Another key area of concern is the rise in the prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, and heart disease. It is important to undergo regular preventive health checkups to determine the risk or detect these at an early stage. However, the deductions for preventive health check-up expenditures have remained capped at INR 5000 per family for a long time now. Further, even this deduction is a part of the Section 80D deduction for the insurance premium and preventive health which has a capping of INR 25,000. There is a need to encourage families to opt for such tests. Taking into account the rising costs, the expectation from the upcoming budget is to provision for doubling the deduction related to preventive health check-ups to INR 10,000 per family and make necessary modifications to the Section 80D ceilings in accordance.
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