The euphoria around PMJAY vs neglect of public health schemes

The NDA government announced the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY). The PMJAY component would give hospital coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh for about 100 million families. The costs would be shared by centre and states in a 60:40 ratio.

PMJAY is largely based on the erstwhile Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, a model which was fraught with problems and has not led to any decline in the out of pocket (OOP) expenditure for the people. A large chunk of OOP expenditure is on outpatient care that is not covered under the insurance scheme. The poor and the