Finance, health ministries to discuss healthcare scheme this month

Representation picThe ministries of finance and health will hold first meeting this month on National Health Protection Scheme to discuss the modalities of its implementation including whether to rope in insurance firms or through setting up of a trust to settle claims The scheme which would be the worlds largest government healthcare programme was announced in 201819 Budget for providing medical cover of up to Rs 5 lakh to over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families constituting 40 per cent of Indias total populationIt would be deliberated on whether National Health Protection Scheme NHPS will be run through trustbased model or through general insurance companies an official told PTI Certain states are already successfully running healthcare schemes using trustbased model Under this model a trust will be set up by the government with funds being contributed by the Centre and states which will settle hospital claims of beneficiaries instead of insurers The health ministry will draft the scheme which is likely to be launched either on August 15 or October 2 after consultation with statesThere are states which run schemes for specific illnesses and it would be discussed how to streamline those along with NHPS the official said The health ministry would discuss with the states on how to go about with the existing staterun schemes once the NHPS is implemented It has be discussed whether the schemes could be merged At the central level the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana RSBY would be subsumed within NHPS he added The mega healthcare plan to provide 10crore poor families with insurance cover against hospitalisation will cost up to Rs 12000 crore annuallyThe Budget has announced initial allocation of Rs 2000 crore for the scheme and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has promised more funds for the scheme as and when required The 10 crore people would be identified on the basis of deprivation indicators under the Socio Economic Caste Census As per the indicators there are about 10 crore destitute families as was mentioned in Budget and those would be covered under the new scheme the official saidThe deprivation indicators would include households with only one room kucha walls and kucha roof no adult member between the ages of 16 and 59 female headed households with no adult male member between 16 and 59 households with disabled member households with no literate adult above 25 years and landless households deriving a major part of their income from manual casual labour The RSBY was launched in early 2008 and was initially designed to target only the below poverty line BPL households but was expanded to cover other defined categories of unorganised workers like construction porter taxi drivers Beedi workers and domestic workersCatch up on all the latest Mumbai National and International news hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the goThe contentreporting displayed on our website wwwmiddaycom is provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE by us from third party agencies sources without any verification from our side It may contain error bugs and other limitations The readers can rely on the content at their own will Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability data text images video messages or any other material whatsoever or for any claimslossaction that the reader may suffer as a result of relying on the content on our site Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever