Centre to Hold State Health Secy’s Meeting to Discuss ‘Modicare’

The National Health Protection Scheme promises Rs 5 lakh a year for secondary & tertiary care to 10 crore families.

A new health programme will cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: iStockphoto)

The Centre has decided to call a meeting of all state secretaries soon to decide the specifics of the proposed National Health Protection Scheme dubbed as 'Modicare' by the finance minister.

In the meeting, the details of apparently the world’s largest government-funded national health programme – would be taken up for discussion.

A concept note has already been circulated ahead of the meeting, and the possibilities of combining existing health schemes of different states into a cumulative national scheme and combining more than one insurance product to arrive at a single cover with a realistic premium amount are being explored, The Indian Express reported.

The National Health Protection Scheme announced in the Union Budget 2018-19 by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is likely to be launched on either 15 August or 2 October, official sources told PTI on Friday.

The scheme, also called the Ayushman Bharat Programme, proposes to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, granting up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care.

“We are launching a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor families which will have approximately 50 crore beneficiaries. We will provide up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation. This will be the world’s largest government-funded healthcare programme,” Jaitley announced on 1 February, Thursday.

From Obamacare, we now have Modicare.

Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister

The finance minister announced that the government’s budget for health, education and social security will be increased to Rs 1.38 lakh crore for 2018-19.(Photo: The Quint)

Healthcare Centres, TB Eradication

Jaitley also announced the development of 1.5 lakh healthcare centres to boost the holistic health of the common man. “We are progressing steadily towards universal health coverage,” he said.

Overall, the government’s budget for health, education and social security has been increased to Rs 1.38 lakh crore for 2018-19 from Rs 1.22 lakh crore in the current fiscal, Jaitley announced.

Jailtey also announced that the government would now aim to have one medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies.

The finance minister also pitched an amount of Rs 600 crore towards providing nutritional support to the patients suffering from tuberculosis. With this, the finance minister said that the government would realise its dream of ensuring “good health for economically less privileged” and take care of senior citizens.