The way in which healthcare is ?nanced is critical for equity in access to healthcare. At present the proportion of public resources committed to healthcare in India is one of the lowest in the world, with less than one-?fth of health expenditure being publicly ?nanced. India has large-scale poverty and yet the main source of ?nancing healthcare is out-of-pocket expenditure. This is a cause of the huge inequities we see in access to healthcare. The article argues for strengthening public investment and expenditure in the health sector and suggests possible options for doing this. It also calls for a reform of the existing healthcare system by restructuring it to create a universal access mechanism which also factors in the private health sector. The article concludes that it is important to over-emphasize the fact that health is a public or social good and so cannot be left to the vagaries of the market.