Page 215 - India Insurance Report 2023- BIMTECH

India Insurance Report - Series II 203

How Can Private Health Insurance

Support Universal Health Insurance

Goals in India?

- Prof (Dr.) Abhijit K Chattoraj
24 Chartered Insurer : Dean and Professor
Birla Institute of Management Technology

1. Introduction and Historical Perspective

The Health Survey and Development Committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Joseph Bhore, in
its report (Bhore, 1946), recommended that healthcare services should be available to all citizens,
irrespective of their ability to pay for it and that the service should be a complete medical service,
domiciliary and institutional, in which all the facilities required for the treatment and prevention of
disease as well as for the promotion of positive health are provided. The committee took a holistic
approach to interpreting health and disease and considered an individual’s social and physical environment.
The committee further considered the study of the disease as a community problem. It emphasized that
the approach should be comprehensive to include social and economic factors such as housing, nutrition,
poverty and ignorance of the hygienic mode of life. The Committee laid down several objectives for
achievement, such as no individual should fail to secure adequate medical care, curative and preventive,
because of inability to pay for it. Preventive and curative health work must be dovetailed into each other
if the maximum results are to be obtained, opined the Committee. The report clearly indicated universal
health care, health as a fundamental human right and all crucial determinants of health.
The constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) 1946 as per WHO (1947) maintains that
‘health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease’.

Article 25 (1) of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 states, “Everyone has
the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services (Assembly, 1948). Article 25(2) further declares,
“ Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, born in or out of wedlock,
shall enjoy the same social protection (Assembly, 1948). Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights declares that everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person (Assembly, 1948).

The declaration of Alma-Ata, 1978 (World Health Organisation, 1978) articulated that “Health is a
fundamental human right and that the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important
worldwide social goal whose realization requires the action of many other social and economic sectors
in addition to the health sector”. The report also recognized people’s right and duty to participate
individually and collectively in the planning and implementing of their healthcare. The Alma-Ata