‘Modicare’ to provide health insurance to 500 mn Indians

The Narendra Modiled BJP government has announced in the Union Budget, a transformative public health programme that offers health insurance cover of up to ₹5 lakh to 100 million poor and vulnerable families, with the benefits expec– ted to reach 500 million Indians.

“It is taking health care to a new aspirational level as it is going to be the world’s largest government-funded programme,” Arun Jaitley, finance minister, said in his speech about the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) that is being referred to as Modicare. This is the world’s biggest health protection scheme by size, though not in terms of budget outlay.

Raising the mediclaim cover by up to 17 times from the existing Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) that caps it at ₹30,000 per year, the NHPS is expected to cover 40% of India’s population. The outlay for RSBY went up from ₹1,000 crore in 2017 to ₹2,000 crore this year.

Only 28.7% families in India have at least one person who is covered by some form of health insurance or scheme, National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16) data reveals. Coverage is marginally higher at 29% in rural areas against 28.2% among urban households, largely on account of public health insurance schemes for BPL and vulnerable families.

NHPS was first announced in the 2016 Budget, but didn’t take off. Its first avatar offered ₹1 lakh annual health insurance cover, with a top up of ₹30,000 for senior citizens.

“It couldn’t get implemented but that scheme is now subsumed by this current scheme,” said Manoj Jhalani, mission director, national health mission, Health ministry. 19p Corporation Tax

NEW DELHI:

16.3p Income tax

10.2p General and Economic Services

9.1p Subsidies

9.4p Centrally Sponsored Schemes

It will give pace to the development of the country...the government is focused not just on ‘ease of doing business’ but also on ‘ease of living’ 4 years gone; still promising FARMERS a fair price... FANCY SCHEMES, with NO matching budgets .... no JOBS for our YOUTH. Thankfully, only 1 more year to go.