Under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced health cards to offer health care to everyone 70 years of age and above, irrespective of their financial situation.
As India’s rapidly ageing population can now obtain therapy that was previously unaffordable due to high expenses, the Ayushman Vaya Vandana card marks the start of an extended program that is anticipated to transform public healthcare.
Each member of the family who is 70 years of age or more will be eligible for a cover of Rs 5 lakh per year. This implies that the coverage will be divided between any two senior beneficiaries living in the same home.
“The elderly people, who always had anxieties about their healthcare because of costs, can now live with swabhimaan (dignity),” said Modi. The scheme will be available everywhere except Delhi and Bengal, since these states have not adopted Ayushman Bharat.
In order to digitise routine vaccinations, the Prime Minister also announced the U-WIN portal’s nationwide launch. People must register on the Ayushman app or the PM-JAY webpage in order to obtain the health coverage. For a new card, those who already have an Ayushman card will also need to reapply via the portal or app and finish their eKYC.
It is crucial to make health coverage universal for people over 70 because India’s population is getting older. Just 8.6 percent of Indians were over 60 at the time of the 2011 census. The government’s Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) predicts that by 2050, this would rise to 19.5%. By 2050, there will probably be 319 million Indians over 60, more than three times as many as there were in 2011 (103 million). Although universal health coverage was the goal of the Ayushman Bharat initiative, this will be the first age group to obtain full coverage.
Nearly 6 crore people from 4.5 crore families will be covered by the program. The scheme already covers 1.78 crore of them.
About 80 lakh of the remaining population are individually covered by a number of government health programs, including the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme, and coverage for relatives of railway and military personnel.
Is this program available to those who are covered by other health plans? People who are already insured by government health programs would be able to choose between Ayushman Bharat and keeping their current coverage.
However, those who are covered by the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) will be able to use both Ayushman Bharat and their current coverage. This is due to the fact that the insured and their employer, not the government, pay the ESIC premiums. The Ayushman Bharat coverage will also be available to those who have their own privately acquired insurance coverage.
A top-up insurance of Rs 5 lakh will be provided to members over 70 whose families are already insured according to their financial situation; this money will only be used for the elderly. To be eligible for the top-up coverage, these senior beneficiaries will need to re-register.
For the scheme’s extension, the Centre will initially invest Rs 3,437 crore. According to officials, this will cover the expenses for the first half of the current fiscal year as well as the entire following year. According to experts, the cost of covering the poorest 40% of people in all age categories would be lower than the cost of covering everyone over 70.
