The Supreme Court order on hospital charges isn’t good for anyone

livemint.com:

On Thursday the Supreme Court criticised the union government's apparent failure to specify a range of prices that private hospitals and clinical establishments can charge for their services. Although a rule on this issue was framed 12 years ago, the court noted that it had not been enforced. It also directed the union health secretary to meet with his state counterparts within a month, with the next court hearing expected in another six weeks.

The meeting is supposed to set a yardstick for standard rates, and the court has offered the example of the Central Government Health Services scheme as a possible one to deploy. This is a breathless order that will hurt the bottom lines of healthcare companies while providing no relief to citizens, for whom treatment costs at private hospitals is a huge concern. One does not even have to conduct a dipstick survey to get a measure of this anguish.

The union government told the court that under the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act of 2010, and rules framed in 2012, all hospitals must display the rates charged for each type of service, which must be within those set by the union and state governments. This was an attempt to control prices across the country, but less than half the states came on board. The rules included setting up district-level bodies, state-level councils, and of course a National Council headed by a joint secretary.