Budget 2016: Jaitley sends a get-well-soon message

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“Catastrophic health events are the single most important cause of unforeseen out-of-pocket expenditure which pushes lakhs of households below the poverty line every year….In order to help such families, the government will launch a new health protection scheme which will provide health cover up to Rs 1 lakh per family. For senior citizens…an additional top-up package up to Rs 30,000 will be provided,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said in his Budget speech.

It was in preparation for the roll-out of a nationwide health insurance scheme that the RSBY was transferred from the labour ministry to the health ministry in April 2015. Jaitley said the health insurance scheme will provide coverage to a third of India’s population — about 40 crore people.

The Indian Express had first reported that a health protection scheme was in the offing.

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Jaitley also unveiled a dialysis service programme, an important measure for a country with a very high load of diabetes and hypertension, both, in the long term, known to affect kidneys. According to figures Jaitley presented, there are nearly 2.2 lakh new patients of End-Stage Renal Disease in India every year, resulting in additional demand for 3.4 crore dialysis sessions. At present, there are about 4,950 dialysis centres in the country, mostly in the private sector and in urban areas.

“Every dialysis session costs about Rs 2,000 — an annual expenditure of more than Rs 3 lakh,” Jaitley said. “Besides, most families have to undertake frequent trips, often over long distances, to access dialysis services, incurring heavy travel costs and loss of wages. To address this, I propose to start a ‘National Dialysis Services Programme’. Funds will be made available through PPP mode under the National Health Mission, to provide dialysis services in all district hospitals. To reduce the cost, I propose to exempt certain parts of dialysis equipment from basic customs duty, excise/CVD and SAD.”

Experts have welcomed the move. Dr Vivekananda Jha, professor of nephrology at PGIMER, Chandigarh, said: “Provision of dialysis has long been a benchmark for willingness of governments around the world to provide healthcare to its populations. The devil will be in the details, for it is easy to spend a lot of money on dialysis for a relatively small proportion of the population. Lessons learnt from implementation in other countries should be used to develop replicable schemes for delivery of good quality dialysis in an ethical manner.”

Specifying that there is a “danger of market ethics drowning quality”, Dr Jha said, “This should be supported by a quality assurance system to be developed in consultation with professional societies and national and international organisations. Quality should not be sacrificed at the altar of cost.”
Jaitley also announced renaming of the Jan Ausadhi scheme for generic drugs as the Prime Minister’s Jan Ausadhi Yojana, under which 3,000 new stores will be opened in the coming financial year.