“This year’s budget announcements are reflective of the Government’s intent to move towards a better economic growth and to restore confidence in India Inc. It has laid out a clear roadmap to promote affordable healthcare in India, especially targeted towards the poor and marginal section of the society.
The existing RSBY scheme which has a limit of Rs 30,000 would be replaced by the new health scheme announced by the Government where the hospitalisation sum insured is increased to Rs 1 lac with an additional top up package of Rs 30,000 for Senior Citizens. With this, the number of ailments/procedures where complete cost of treatments can be covered would increase than in the existing scheme. This would also increase the number of quality hospitals within the network of this scheme with more number of hospitals getting empanelled. For the BPL families, this scheme would definitely reduce the financial burden of catastrophic Health care costs. We anticipate that this scheme would run on the existing RSBY platform and with use of technology, this would be very effective. There would be revised ailment / procedure wise package charges with the network hospitals. As there is a substantial quantum of jump in the sum insured, the overall cost of premiums which the governments, both central and state, share is also expected to go up.
Setting up 3,000 pharmacies under the government’s Jan Aushadhi Yojana is aimed towards better and easier availability of generic drugs through which the overall health care cost would be pushed downwards. This would be a boon to the lower as well as middle income groups especially for patients suffering from chronic illnesses.
Public Private Partnership model in healthcare got a major boost with the launch of a national dialysis service under the National Health Mission to provide dialysis services at district level hospitals. This is a welcome move which would be beneficial to people living with Chronic Renal Failure. Sometimes, the cost of dialysis in private hospitals becomes unaffordable and such facilities are being offered only in major towns and cities. By making Dialysis available at all district hospitals, the treatment cost would come down substantially as the patients will not be required to travel distances to avail this treatment.
Additionally, service tax exemption on premiums of schemes under Nirmaya scheme will reduce the cost of this scheme and will encourage more people to enrol to this. The scheme and subsequent exemption will in turn make people with special needs as much financially independent as possible.”
