Under National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), the government will provide health insurance worth Rs 5 lakh to 10 crore poor families across India
In a major step towards providing Universal Health Coverage — a promise made by Narendra Modi government — the finance minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget announced a National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) providing health insurance worth Rs 5 lakh to 10 crore poor families.
Jaitley said NHPS is expected to benefit 50 crore people across India and called its as the largest government-funded health insurance scheme to be implemented anywhere in the world.
Under NHPS, people will get medical treatment in secondary and tertiary hospitals.
Currently, the Union government provides Rs 30,000 as health insurance for poor families under Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) which is insufficient to cover most medical procedures.
The government also said it will be setting up 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres or community healthcare clinics across India under Bharat Ayushman Programme that will provide treatment for non-communicable diseases. The government said it will be allotting Rs 1,200 crore for the programme and said it will ask the private enterprises to join the programme as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
“The announcement in the area of healthcare is clearly path-breaking for the sheer size, coverage and the amount committed per family. This ushers India firmly in the next generation of social security as India moves aggressively towards a progressive developing economy,” said Milind Kothari, Managing Partner, Head-Tax and Regulatory services, BDO India.
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