NSO data paints a dismal picture of health insurance in the country

While households across income groups are borrowing less to pay for medical costs, the insurance sector has progressively ignored the poor and focused instead on the more lucrative upper-income groups

First, the good news. Indian households, including those in the lowest income groups, are able to finance much more of their medical expenses from their own resources today. Their borrowings to cover health costs have halved in this decade. The bad news is that this has been offset by adverse health insurance cover that has progressively concentrated on the upper-income groups and has, as a result, hurt the capacity of those in the lower brackets, reports the latest National Statistical Office data on health expenditure by households.

The data, released by the government this month, has come out with a