Health Should Be Shifted To The Concurrent List:
Fifteenth Finance Commission Chairman N.K. Singh said that health should be shifted to the Concurrent list under the Constitution. Presently, ‘Health’ is under the State List.
- He also pitched for a Developmental Finance Institution (DFI) dedicated to healthcare investments.
Arguments for Shifting ‘Health’ to the Concurrent List:
- Centre with Greater Flexibility: Bringing health into the Concurrent list would give the Centre greater flexibility to enact regulatory changes and reinforce the obligation of all stakeholders towards providing better healthcare.
- Rationalisation and Streamlining of the Multiple Acts: There is a multiplicity of Acts, rules and regulations, and mushrooming institutions, yet the regulation of the sector is far from adequate.
- With the health in the concurrent list, uniformity of acts can be ensured.
- Centre Expertise to States: The Central government is also technically better equipped to come up with health schemes because it has the assistance of multiple research bodies and departments dedicated to the management of public health.
- States on the other hand do not have the technical expertise to independently design comprehensive public health policies.
