Universal health care-Health care reforms in India

Universal health care is health care coverage for all eligible residents of a political region and often covers medical, dental and mental health care. Typically, costs are borne in the majority by publicly-funded programs.

Universal health care systems vary according to the extent of government involvement in providing care and/or health insurance. In some countries, such as the UK, Spain, Italy and the Nordic countries, the government has a high degree of involvement in the commissioning or delivery of health care services and access is based on residence rights not on the purchase of insurance.

Others have a much more pluralistic delivery system based on obligatory health with contributory insurance rates related to salaries or income, and usually funded by employers and beneficiaries jointly. Sometimes the health funds are derived from a mixture of insurance premiums and government taxes.

These insurance based systems tend to have a higher proportion of private medical providers obtaining reimbursement, often at heavily regulated rates, through mutual or publicly owned medical insurers. A few countries such as the Netherlands and Switzerland operate via privately owned but heavily regulated private insurers. Americans use the term single-payer health care to describe the pooling of health care funds into a single not-for-profit fund for a region or nation.

Universal health care is implemented in all industrialized countries, with the exception of the United States.It is also provided in many developing countries like India.