Universalising health coverage is the current goal of the health service system in India. Tax-funded insurance for poor families is the method chosen for attaining this objective. The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana was rolled out in 2008 for households below the poverty line, enabling them to access health services in the public and private sectors. However, experience from different countries shows tax-funded insurance systems work well only in settings where public provisioning of healthcare services prevails. State-funded targeted insurance schemes do not seriously mitigate inequitable access to health services in a fundamentally private healthcare delivery market.
