Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious plan to create the world’s largest government-funded public health cover project in India reached a new milestone after his Union Cabinet yesterday approved the launch of the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

The Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) project, also popularly named ‘Modicare’ after the Prime Minister, aims to provide a health insurance cover of Rs. 5 lakh per year to over 10 crore poor families with no restrictions on the number of members therein and their ages.

First declared by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during last month’s union budget, Modicare subsumes two ongoing central health schemes – Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme – to create a unified government-funded public health coverage, which will be the largest of its kind in the world.

An official statement released by the government in this regard said that there will be no cap on family size and age under this scheme to ensure nobody is left out, especially women, children and elderly. The benefits under this scheme will also include payment of pre- and post-hospitalization expenses, and all pre-existing conditions will be covered under the policies from the very first day they come into effect.

In order to accord more flexibility to states on the basis of principles of co-operative federalism, states have been allowed to expand AB-NHPM, and implement the scheme through an insurance company or a trust or even a mixed model as per their convenience. An AB-NHPM Council will also be established at the apex level to facilitate co-ordination between the Central government and all states.

Although no official date has been fixed for Modicare’s launch, it is expected to be implemented latest by October this year.

By dhruv