Healthcare : Privilege, Right or Responsibility

The US Healthcare Reform Bill has finally been signed into law. This marks a major milestone in the journey towards universal coverage in the United States which remains the only developed country not to have a universal health coverage for its citizens. This is also the first major healthcare reform in the United States in the last four decades. The Democratic Leadership in the Congress and President Obama have called this a historic step transferring healthcare from the status of a privilege which only people with sufficient means could aspire for to the status of a right with penalties for non-conformance. How this reform pans out in the years ahead remains to be seen

Back home in India, Assam has become the first state in India to enact a Right to Health Bill. The Public Health Bill 2010 mandates that public and private hospitals to provide care for the first 24 hours for a patient on free of cost basis. The Bill also puts the onus on the State Health and Family Welfare Department to carry out tasks related to coordination with other departments concerned and providing people with minimum nutritionally adequate essential food, adequate supply of safe drinking water, sanitation through appropriate and effective sewage and drainage systems and access to basic housing facilities. This Right to Health Bill is the latest in a series of "Rights" Bills enacted by the UPA Government - the Right to Information Act, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Right to Work), Right to Education as well as the "Right to Food" which is now being debated by the Empowered Group of Ministers.

With every Right however comes Responsibility . As we applaud Assam for making Healthcare a Right, it is also the most opportune time to reflect on our responsibilities. Many of the diseases affecting the Indian population - diabetes, cardiac disease, stroke, cancer, HIV have a significant behavioural component to them. Unless behaviours are modified by the individuals, India will continue to bear the title of Diabetes Capital of the World, Heart Disease Capital of the World etc. Enhancing the scope of healthcare from care for the sick to a more holistic preventive and wellness based approach is the need of the hour