AYUSHMAN BHARAT— PRADHAN MANTRI JAN AROGYA YOJANA
In a change of stance, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has announced that it would be implementing the Central government’s Ayushman Bharat — Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana to provide ₹5 lakh health insurance cover to families per year, after having opposed it for several months.
About Ayushman Bharat:
Launched as recommended by the National Health Policy 2017, to achieve the vision of Universal Health Coverage (UHC)👀.
This initiative has been designed to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its underlining commitment, which is to “leave no one behind.”👀
Ayushman Bharat adopts a continuum of care approach, comprising of two inter-related components, which are:
- Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs).
- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY).
Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY):
It is the largest health assurance scheme in the world which aims at providing a health cover of Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
- It aims to over 10.74 crores poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) that form the bottom 40% of the Indian population.
- The households included are based on the deprivation and occupational criteria of Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 (SECC 2011) for rural and urban areas respectively.
- PM-JAY was earlier known as the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS)👀 before being rechristened. It subsumed the then existing Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) 👀which had been launched in 2008.
- PM-JAY is fully funded by the Government and cost of implementation is shared between the Central and State Governments.
- It covers up to 3 days of pre-hospitalization and 15 days post-hospitalization expenses such as diagnostics and medicines.
- There is no restriction on the family size, age or gender.
- Benefits of the scheme are portable across the country. a beneficiary can visit any empanelled public or private hospital in India to avail cashless treatment.
