Looking beyond the Universal Health Coverage: Health Inequality, Medicalism and Dehealthism in India

India is world’s largest democracy having parliamentary form of government and federal structure. India is witnessing poor and differential achievements in increasing the life expectancy at birth and controlling infant mortality, maternal mortality and long and short term communicable and non-communicable morbidities among and within various states. The increasing hiatus in health achievements among groups in India amidst growing medicalisation and other policy reforms suggests prevalence of a deeper creeping malaise: health inequality. A new road map of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for providing universal accessibility and affordability of healthcare is proposed. Taking a broad perspective on health and health care, this paper critically analyses the various provisions of proposed UHC in the context of unmet health needs and growing health inequality. It finds that the narrowing of health policies in post independence India is also responsible for perpetuation of inequalities in health. It also identifies specific hurdles in the path of achieving universal health, which are: poor primary health care, limited reach of public health, denial of basic health goods, out of pocket health expenditure and the growth of a vicious circle of ‘medicalism’ and ‘dehealthism’.