The Centre, on 1 February, announced the world's largest government-funded health care programme, aimed at benefiting 10 crore poor families by providing coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.
Jaitley introduced two major initiatives relating to health – the National Health Protection Scheme and the move to bring health care system closer to the homes through 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres, as part of the 'Ayushman Bharat' programme aimed at making path breaking interventions to address health holistically, in the primary, secondary and tertiary care system.
The National Health Protection Scheme, announced in the 2018-2019 union budget, would provide 10 crore families, or about 50 crore poor people, with a health cover of 5,00,000 for medical treatment.
The government’s plans to provide health insurance to 10 crore poor families would require 11 thousand crore rupees in federal and state funding each year, a government official told Reuters.
The government has estimated that the premium for each family’s insurance will cost them about Rs 1,100, a government official told Reuters.
These schemes will also generate lakhs of jobs, particularly for women. The government is steadily but surely progressing towards the goal of Universal Health Coverage.Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister
A top official of the health ministry said that an allocation of Rs 2,000 crore has been given to Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) through which the the money for the National Health Protection Scheme will be initially channelised.
The allocation in the last budget had seen an increase of 27.76 percent from 2016-17.
The budget allocation for the Health Ministry for 2018-19 is Rs 52,800 crore in comparison to last year's allocation of Rs 47,352.51 crore – an increase of 5,448 crore or about 11.5 percent. The revised allocation for 2017-2018 was Rs 51,550.85.
(With inputs from Reuters)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)