The Budget for 2018-19 on Thursday unveiled what is described as the world’s largest Government funded health-care programme. The National Health Protection Scheme (NPHS) is aimed at benefiting 10 crore poor families by providing coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary
and tertiary care hospitalisation.
In his Budget speech, Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley called the NHPS as world’s largest Government-funded health care programme and also announced Rs 1,200 crore under the National Health Policy 2017 to set up 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres to bring health care closer to the homes of people.
Noting that only a “swasth Bharat” (healthy India) can be a “samriddha Bharat” (prosperous India), Jaitley said India cannot realise its demographic dividend without its citizens being healthy.
“We will launch a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.
Incidentally, while unveiling the Budget 2016-17 in Parliament, Jaitley had voiced similar concerns about the plight of the poor, saying “a new national health protection scheme will be launched under which a cover up to Rs 1 lakh per family will be provided”.
He had said, “A serious illness of family member(s) causes severe stress on the financial condition of poor and economically weak families, shaking the foundation of their economic security. In order to help such families, the Government will launch a new health protection scheme, which will provide health cover up to Rs 1 lakh per family.”
However, the scheme failed to take off with the Union Health Ministry busy finalising the contours of the scheme.
Presenting his fifth straight Budget in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Jaitley said, “This will be the world’s largest Government-funded health care programme. Adequate funds will be provided for smooth implementation of this programme.”
Jaitley said his Government has decided to take health protection to a “more aspirational level” and observed that several State Governments have also implemented or supplemented health protection schemes with varying coverage plans.
The present Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) provides annual coverage of only Rs 30,000 to poor families.
To ensure quality medical education and health care, the Government will set up 24 new Government medical colleges and hospitals by upgrading existing district hospitals in the country.
“This would ensure that there is at least one medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies and at least one government medical college in each state of the country,” he said.
The Health and Wellness Centres will provide comprehensive health care, including for noncommunicable diseases and maternal and child health services.
“These centres will also provide free essential drugs and diagnostic services. I am committing Rs 1,200 crore in this Budget for this flagship programme. I also invite contribution of private sector through CSR.”
“These schemes will also generate lakhs of jobs, particularly for women. The Government is steadily but surely progressing towards the goal of Universal Health Coverage,” he said.
Apart from this, Rs 600 crore has been allocated to provide nutritional support to all TB patients @ Rs 500/month for the duration of their treatment. Cess in health and education has been increased from 3 per cent to 4 per cent and there is also a Mediclaim relief of Rs 50,000 for senior citizens.
“In order to take care of the needs of education and health of BPL and rural families, I have announced programs in Part A of my speech. To fund this, I propose to increase the cess by one per cent. The existing three per cent education cess will be replaced by a four per cent “Health and Education Cess” to be levied on the tax payable. This will enable us to collect an estimated additional amount of Rs 11,000 crore,” the Finance Minister said.
After the Budget, Health Minister JP Nadda tweeted, “I thank Hon’ PM @narendramodi ji & FM @arunjaitley ji for giving us a visionary budget with specific focus on Agriculture, employment generation, better health care and infrastructure development. #NewIndiaBudget”.