Bhubaneswar: Health and family welfare minister Pratap Jena Thursday made it clear that the state will not implement the Centre’s ambitious health insurance scheme ‘Ayushman Bharat’.
According to the minister, the decision has been taken as the ‘Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana’ (BSKY), launched a couple of days back, covers 70 lakh families in the state compared with the 61 lakh families that were to be covered by ‘Ayushman Bharat’.
“The state government had requested the Centre to cover 70 lakh families instead of 61 lakh they have fixed based on the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 data. But they rejected our proposal,” Jena said.
He claimed the healthcare scheme of the state government was better than that of the Centre.
“When we have launched our own scheme, there is no need for associating with Ayushman Bharat Yojana. The Centre has also not yet made the timeline of its implementation clear. We have already announced the timeline of implementation of our scheme, that is, with effect from August 15,” the minister said.
“Our government is ready to bear the entire financial burden of Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana,” he added.
BSKY, which Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched Tuesday, is expected to benefit about 3.5 crore people in the state.
Under the programme, a family would get up to Rs 5 lakh a year to meet healthcare expenditure at both private and government-run hospitals and the entire cost would be borne by the state government.
The scheme is also scheduled to come into effect August 15, the same date scheduled for the launch of Ayushman Bharat, which is also known as ModiCare.
According to sources, the BJD government has announced the new healthcare scheme with the aim to steal a march on ModiCare.
State bunks meet
New Delhi: The state government Thursday skipped the national consultative meet of state health ministers meant to discuss modalities pertaining to the roll-out of Ayushman Bharat health protection scheme and the signing of related agreements. According to the Health Ministry, by Thursday, 20 states had come on board the National Health Protection Scheme by signing MoUs with the health ministry. The ministry claims that by the end of June, 25 states would be on board for the scheme. However, the governments of New Delhi and West Bengal also were reported to have skipped the meeting. According to health ministry sources, representatives of Union Territories of Andaman, Lakshadweep and Daman & Diu also gave the meeting a miss. The ministry, though,
clarified that they were
absent on account of
administrative issues and not because they were reluctant to join the scheme.
