Should health be given the status of a fundamental right, guaranteed under the Constitution? When the NDA returned to power at the Centre in 2014, it did moot such a proposal in its draft tiol health policy (NHP) in December that year. Flush with noble intentions, it spoke of the need to bring about universal and affordable healthcare to the people. It further put forward the idea that health could be made a fundamental right, very much in line with elementary education being given such a status in 2009. However, hard-headed ‘pragmatism’ took over by the time the Central government announced the NHP in March last year, that too after the Supreme Court’s prodding. tiol Health Policy 2017 has promised to hike public health spending to 2.5% of the country’s GDP in ‘time-bound manner’, to move away from ‘sick-care to wellness’ by putting the thrust on prevention and health promotion. When Union Health Minister JP dda was asked what happened to the proposal to declare health a fundamental right (and therefore legally enforceable), he candidly replied: “What if we are not able to provide the services?”. dda may have dubbed the NHP “a milestone”, but it has failed to impress healthcare activists. GDP spend of 2.5% on health by 2025 was setting the target too low, they argue. This low priority to health has been a bugbear long afflicting the country. After independence, it amounted to a measly 0.22% of GDP in 1950-51; even as late as a decade into the new millennium, this spending was barely a little over 1% of GDP, as noted by the Economic Survey last year. It quoted Reserve Bank data relating to expenditure on education and health by the Centre and States to be 2.9% and 1.4% respectively (as per 2016-17 budget estimate). The survey made a telling observation about the Indian economic model — that it is characterised by a “weakness of state capacity” in delivering essential services like health and education to the people.