Most of the Indian politicians opt to go to the USA for treatment, obliging the Indian tax payer to pay three to four times the cost of what it would cost in India. Add to it the cost of their accompanying family and personal physicians. This when, paradoxically, one in five of the surgeons in the USA are from India.

The questions to be asked here are:

 Is the professional prowess of Indian doctors doubtful?

Is the technical where withal and medical equipment of the best hospitals of India not up to the mark?

Is the paramedical service lacking?

The answer to the above will need to be in the affirmative to justify use of public money to go abroad for treatment. In that case, who is answerable for failure to provide the country with a dependable health care system after seventy one years of independence? Surely it is these very politicians who draft policies and overlook their implementation. If they feel that the health care system is still such that they would not trust their lives to it, they should be held accountable and  penalized instead of pampered . What makes them think that their lives are more precious than those of the millions of Indians who pay taxes with the belief that the government will use it to provide basic human facilities. By what logic is the life of a Sonia, Badal or Ambareesh more important for the nation than the intellectuals, scientists, teachers, engineers and soldiers who are faithfully serving the nation? Why should a poor nation mis-utilize government funds to pamper corrupt leaders when there are still many villages that have no dispensaries, no schools and no access to drinking water? Let these leaders realize that they are not colonial rulers; they are from this third world country called India and must live and die here.