Direction of uneven health-care expenditure: Evidence from Northeast India.

BACKGROUND: Although the need for ensuring universal coverage in health has received the attention of policymakers under the Millennium Development Goals program, the skewed pattern of health-care expenditure has been increased globally.

OBJECTIVE: To find out the pattern of public health-care expenditure in northeastern states of India and also to identify the nature of inter-state variation in health-care expenditure among the states.

METHODS: The study was based on the secondary data collected from the State Finance Figures of Budgetary Statistics of Reserve Bank of India. The period of study was 13 years (2002-2003 to 2014-2015). The study used descriptive statistics and composite supply-side index separately for revenue and capital expenditure by randomizing through the population census figures of 2001 and 2011 for examining the pattern of interstate variation in health-care expenditure.

RESULTS: It has been observed that the states having higher mean expenditure registered low compound annual growth rate in health expenditure and thereby causing low per capita value and lower value of the composite index.

CONCLUSION: Thus, the largely populated state needs the due attention of policymaker in reducing the skewed pattern of health-care expenditure.