Page 17 - Insurance Times August 2019

Cover Story

AYUSHMAN

BHARAT NATIONAL

HEALTH

PROTECTION

MISSION

A yushman Bharat is National Health Protection Society/ Not for Profit Company/ State Nodal Agency (SNA)

or set up a new entity to implement the scheme. States/
Scheme, will cover over 10 crore poor and
vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore
UTs can decide to implement the scheme through an
beneficiaries) providing coverage up to 5 lakh
rupees per family every year for secondary and insurance company or directly through the Trust/Society or
use an integrated model. In Budget 2018, the government
tertiary care hospitalization. Ayushman Bharat - National had made these announcements:
Health Protection Mission will subsume the on-going (a) On a National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS)
centrally sponsored schemes - Rashtriya Swasthya Bima providing insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh per family;
Yojana (RSBY) and the Senior Citizen Health Insurance
(b) Having an initiative to establish new government
Scheme (SCHIS).
medical colleges and hospitals, and upgrading existing
district hospitals under the programme; and
At the national level to manage, an Ayushman Bharat
National Health Protection Mission Agency (AB-NHPMA) (c) Setting up of over 1,50,000 health and wellness centres
would be put in place. States/UTs would be advised to throughout the country.
implement the scheme by a dedicated entity called State
Health Agency (SHA). They can either use an existing Trust/ An integrated approach in implementation of all the three
initiatives can steer the country towards having universal
healthcare. The success of the flagship NHPS, aimed at
About the author making available secondary and tertiary care to the needy
could largely depend upon how successfully the other two
Jagendra Kumar
initiatives are implemented. The two major concern areas
Ex. CEO, identifiable in the existing government health insurance
Pearl Insurance Brokers schemes are enrolment and abuse or overtreatment or
JAIPUR
unnecessary hospitalizations. There are situations of
The Insurance Times, August 2019 17