A recently-published government survey raised a question for a long-running government mission. The household travel expenditure survey for 2025-26 informed us that medical trips made the second-largest claim on a family’s purse for same-day travel—across rural and urban India. And that the cost has grown in recent years. Now look at a progressive plan laid under the National Health Mission, which traces its origin back to the mid-2000s. The norm was to have one medical mobile unit for 10 lakh Indians, subject to a cap of five MMUs per district that could be relaxed for tough terrains. These can save households a large amount every year, especially in hard-to-reach areas with patchy commercial connectivity. Even though the mission was renewed for another five years in 2025, reporting on the MMU rollout stopped years earlier. It’s time to focus on it again.