Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Brijesh C Purohit

Titel

Changing Demand for Healthcare in India

Ist Teil von

• Online journal of health & allied sciences : OJHAS, 2020-02, Vol.18 (4)

Ort / Verlag

Light House Polyclinic Mangalore

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Healthcare consumers may be behaving to some extent based on the nature of healthcare being a necessity or otherwise. The choice of either of public and private providers may depend upon factors like availability, accessibility, cost and quality. To some extent, this is revealed through their elasticities based on income, cost, quality and socio-economic factors. Objective of this paper is to explore the demand for healthcare services in India and estimate consumers’ elasticities to these factors. Using logit results we find that an individual may choose his preference for private or public based on distance of facility from residence. It may also depend whether it is rural or urban area and whether the income levels of state are below or above all India average. Comparing our results for two all India surveys, it is observed that people’s perception and thus preferences are mostly based on choices of nearby location, suitable timings, presence of medical personnel and less waiting time. The presence of insurance either by a national or state sponsored scheme seems to have changed the nature of healthcare demand in India from a stark necessity to a matter of better choice.