Unrestricted, equal and effective health care delivery is the fundamental right of every human being. It is an obligatory responsibility of the ruling governments to ensure that all the people receive their “right to health care”

Some well developed nations like UK and Canada provide free health care to all its residents. These governments do not specifically charge their residents in any form separately for the health care. The above two governments allocate anywhere between 15% and 20% of the annual budget or public spending to health care funding every year.

In USA with the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1960’S there is increased access to health care availability for old and vulnerable groups among the poor. Prior to this, direct payment from patients accounted to almost 85% of the costs of care. This decreased remarkably to 27% by 1980’s with the remainder of the health care costs funded by private health insurance and public health expenditure.

In USA the current health care costs account for up to 17% of public spending and is rising rapidly with unmatched growth in other sectors of economy.

There is growing concern over the constantly rising costs of health care all over the world. Increased allocation of national income to meet the growing costs may not be possible in these nations anymore.

In China the health care system is still very poor and the health care costs account for up to 5% of public spending. People spend a major part of their health care costs in purchase of prescription medicines. China is in the process of rolling out a mandatory rural health welfare programme in 2010 which will increase public spending to a considerable extent.

In developing nations like India, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and China the public spending on health care accounts to less than 10% with a meagre 3% in India and up to 8% in Brazil.

Various developing nations like Brazil, India, and Trinidad & Tobago also have entirely public funded hospitals where the health care is totally free. In Trinidad & Tobago majority of the people avail public health care mostly for simple to moderately severe illnesses as private health care is expensive and the public hospitals function well.

The public health system is grossly underfunded and poorly managed in both India and Brazil. Around one fourth of the population in Brazil hold some kind of insurance while in India, not even one tenth of its population hold any kind of insurance cover.

There is wide disparity between urban and rural areas in health care facilities in many of the developing nations. The current governments in India and China have announced increased public spending for the health care in near future to improve the health care services in both urban and rural areas.

With increasing health costs the percentage of growth in public spending is surpassing the predicted growth in economy in many of the developed nations. In Italy the public spending amounts to a massive 50% of GDP while the economic forecast predicted less than 2% growth in the year 2010 and the health care system is poorly funded as well.

But when it comes to emerging economies like India, Brazil and China the health care systems need a major boost in funding in these countries. There is still huge scope for improvement in health care facilities in these countries while minimising any extra burden on general population in the form of increased taxes or worsening deflation.