31/12/2018 - Health

KEY POINTS

PM Jan Arogya Yojana

Objectives

·        Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana (PMJAY) will provide a cover of up to Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year, for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.

·        PMJAY will help reduce catastrophic expenditure for hospitalizations, which impoverishes people and will help mitigate the financial risk arising out of catastrophic health episodes.

·        When fully implemented, PMJAY will become the world’s largest fully government-financed health protection scheme. It is a visionary step towards advancing the agenda of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Criticisms of hasty implementation

·        The launch of the PMJAY was timed closer to the forthcoming general elections. the programme is now being rolled out hurriedly, even before the necessary systems and processes have been developed fully and tested for their robustness.

·        The programme lags in proposing to level the playing field between the public and private hospitals, as public hospitals would continue receiving budgetary support.

·        The programme remains silent in extending to the above-poverty-line (APL) population in the unorganised sector.

·        Additional incentives be given to the private players for setting up hospitals in the underserved areas remain unclear.

Hence it is important to make longer-term commitments and resolve programme uncertainties, especially with regard to the inclusion of the APL, for which there is a strong case. In this stage a binding policy commitment so as to reduce policy uncertainty and enable investments in hospital infrastructure. In other words, a longer-term outlook is needed, and based on this, certain commitments are warranted.

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