Union Health Ministry releases National Health Accounts (NHA) Estimates 2022-23; GHE tripled, OOPE share down to 43.4%

📌 Summary:

• Union Health Ministry released National Health Accounts (NHA) Estimates 2022-23 — the 10th NHA report prepared by the NHA Technical Secretariat (NHATS) at the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) using the WHO System of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011 framework
• Government Health Expenditure (GHE) tripled: from ₹1.30 lakh crore (2013-14) to ₹3.85 lakh crore (2022-23)
• GHE as % of GDP: rose from 1.15% to 1.43% (1.48% on new GDP series with base year 2022-23) — still well below the 2.5% target of National Health Policy, 2017
• GHE as % of General Government Expenditure (GGE): rose from 3.78% to 4.89% — growing prioritisation of health
• Per-capita GHE: rose ~2.7×, from ₹1,042 to ₹2,786
• Out-of-Pocket Expenditure (OOPE) as % of Total Health Expenditure (THE): declined sharply from 64.2% (2013-14) to 43.4% (2022-23) — major reduction in catastrophic-health burden on households
• GHE share of THE: rose from 28.6% to 43.7%
• Social Security Expenditure on healthcare: rose from 6% to 9.9%
• Primary Health Care expenditure by government: more than doubled — from ₹0.5 lakh crore to ₹1.4 lakh crore
• Decadal trend shows extra COVID-era boost in government health spending

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 — Health policy, public health financing, universal health coverage (UHC), National Health Policy 2017 targets, Ayushman Bharat/PM-JAY; GS3 — health-economic indicators; Prelims — high-yield data.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• NHA Estimates 2022-23 = 10th edition
• Compiling body: NHA Technical Secretariat (NHATS), under National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC), MoHFW
• Framework: WHO System of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011
• GHE share of GDP (2022-23): 1.43% (1.48% on new GDP series base 2022-23)
• OOPE share of THE (2022-23): 43.4% (down from 64.2% in 2013-14)
• Per-capita GHE (2022-23): ₹2,786
• National Health Policy 2017 target: GHE = 2.5% of GDP

🔑 Key Term: National Health Accounts (NHA) — annual estimates of all health-related expenditures (public, private, external) in India, tracking flows of funds through the health system using WHO's SHA 2011 framework; OOPE is a key equity indicator.