The Union Cabinet – chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi – approved the launch of Ayushman Bharat - National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) Wednesday, March 20. The scheme is expected to become effective by October.
Here are 10 quick facts about Modicare:
- AB-NHPM will provide health coverage to 10 crore poor families irrespective of age and family size. "To ensure that nobody is left out (especially women, children and elderly) there will be no cap on family size and age in the scheme," the Cabinet said in a statement.
- Modicare will bear both pre and post-hospitalization expenses. The policy will not only cover all pre-existing medical conditions and ailments from the first day but also ensure that the beneficiary is provided a definite transport allowance per hospitalization.
- Ayushman Bharath has been identified as world's largest government-funded public health coverage and will provide medical benefit to 10.74 crore poor Indians.
- Each family will be provided Rs 5 lakh every year. The families will be selected on the basis of Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC). The families which come under the deprivation criteria of the SECC— like female-headed households, families with no adult member (16-59 years of age) or have only one room with kucha walls and kucharoof—will be entitled to Modicare.
- The policy will include the on-going centrally sponsored schemes— Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme (SCHIS)
- The cabinet also added that "benefits of the scheme are portable across the country and a beneficiary covered under the scheme will be allowed to take cashless benefits from any public or private empaneled hospitals across the country"
- To take care of the budget, the payments for treatment will be done on the basis of package rates. The packages will include all the costs of the treatment.
- However, if necessary, states will have the flexibility to modify these rates within a limited bandwidth. The states would be allowed to expand AB-NHPM both horizontally and vertically
- To ensure cashless transactions, the AB-NHPM will partner with NITI Aayog, which the cabinet has described as robust, modular, scalable and interoperable IT platform. The cabinet also added that this will prevent fraud cases, abuse of fund and an easy detection of any potential misuse
- The government plans to make the best use of print media, electronic media, social media platforms and traditional media to make the target people aware of the scheme
