No short-cuts to health: New insurance plan is welcome, but worries remain

It is also worth noting that the costs of this scheme are unknown

Perhaps the most eye-catching announcement in the Union Budget for 2018-19, presented in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley last week, was a new publicly-supported medical insurance scheme for the 500 million most economically vulnerable Indians, or 100 million families. These families will be covered for catastrophic medical events up to Rs 500,000 by government medical insurance, and will be able to get treatment for such events in any hospital. The finance minister described this as a first step to universal health coverage, which was a promise in the 2014 general election manifesto of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The