A decent start to Ayushman Bharat but tough challenges lie ahead

The Centre's ambitious insurance scheme to provide secondary and tertiary health care saw the light of day in September 2018. A Rs 500,000-insurance cover scheme was rolled out for those who feature in the socio-economic caste census as against an earlier plan of a Rs 100,000-scheme. Ayushman Bharat will provide health care insurance cover for 500 mn people. But there have been teething issues, such as difficulties in on-boarding govt hospitals. A study by India Infoline suggested that according to early estimates, govt spend per admission is in the range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000, while private hospitals’ revenues are at least 4.5 times higher. IIFL analysts also said that funding the scheme is likely to get challenging for the Centre that aims to cut down fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of GDP in the medium term.