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TRIPPLE JUMLAS: THE HEALTH RHETORIC

By Varun Hari Prasad


Consistent with its tradition of dazzling the people with numbers and slogans the government announced the ‘World’s Largest Government Funded Health Programme’, which the BJP Chief Amit Shah described as NAMO care. Indeed it turned out to be NAMO: No Allocation Messaging Only! The reality is that Ayushman Bharat Yojana is not the World’s largest government funded health scheme but the World’s largest unfunded government jumla.


In the Budget 2016-17, the Finance Minister announced a National Health Scheme to cover 6 crore people with a coverage of ₹1 lakh but it did not see the light of the day. Now he has announced a scheme for 10 crore families with a coverage of upto ₹5 lakh. While the political messaging of this scheme is robust, the devil is in the detail.

Many states in our country already have their own health insurance schemes (in many states the coverage is ₹1 lakh). The combined premium of the state schemes is ₹1 lakh crore per year. If the government were to provide ₹5 lakh cover the premium would be:
 
Premium
Amount (₹)
@ 1%
50,000 crore
@ 2%
1,00,000 crore
@ 3%
1,50,000 crore


Let us assume that the government would provide premium @ 2% which means that it would have to make a provision for ₹1,00,000 crore. A close look at the budget documents show that no such provision has been made (not even for 1% premium). In fact, the Finance Minister himself partially admitted this when he said that he would ‘raise the resources’ for this scheme.

Where will the government raise resources from? The Cess has already been accounted and the budget has been balanced. And, how will it raise the resources? The only way it has used so far is: raise taxes on petrol and diesel, a step that could add to inflation.



However, we must not forget that insurance deals only with ‘in-patients’ and not ‘out-patients’. This would imply that a majority of those who would be covered by this scheme will not be able to get its benefit as most of them are not likely to be ‘in-patients’ (or at-least every year). Our government must realise that the US model of health insurance is not the answer to the problems we face on the health front. Instead, they could consider replicating the tried, tested and widely successful Kerala and Tamil Nadu model of health assurance which focus on primary health care. 

It is high time our policy makers refrain from mere messaging and political gimmicks and instead come with policies that are backed with an overarching vision and sufficient allocation.     


 

Comments

  1. Unknown9 April 2018 at 21:01

    As the govt had not fullfilled some of it's schemes which yet to be full filled and gain of resources will crtical in this stage ,govt made falls promises to people in regards to premium not reached to people ..

    ReplyDelete

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