Mamata Banerjee and N Chandrababu Naidu raise their concerns about the National Health Protection Mission
While Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s ongoing “dharna” at Raj Bhawan was the elephant in the room at the Niti Ayog governing council meeting on Sunday, the meeting also saw chief ministers voicing their concerns on the ambitious health insurance programme of the Centre.
While West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee raised the cooperative federalism flag, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu said that the current entitlement criteria would cover only a minuscule percentage of the population in his state. Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission will cover 10.74 crore families and is said to be the largest government funded Heath insurance scheme in the world. While AP has signed a MoU with the Centre for the implementation of the scheme, West Bengal is yet to board the train.
Odisha having already launched its own Rs 5 lakh health scheme days ahead of the formal launch of NHPM, all eyes will be on states like West Bengal and Punjab which have to decided yet
Banerjee after the meeting was over, told reporters: “It is not fair for the Centre to set the agenda of the annual Niti meeting. It is for the states to tell them their issues … take this health insurance plan they want to start. But we already have a provision for free treatment, health for all…” Banerjee said. Significantly she left it ambiguous whether or not her state will eventually join the scheme. For states even with their own schemes it makes financial sense to join as the Centre would then pay 60% of the premium for beneficiaries qualifying to a Rs 5 lakh health cover as per data from the socioeconomic caste census. There is also the option of co-branding so that states can still make political capital of their own schemes.
However with Odisha having already launched its own Rs 5 lakh health scheme days ahead of the formal launch of NHPM, all eyes will be on states like West Bengal and Punjab which have not decided yet. West Bengal did not participate in the first NHPM council meeting last week either.
In his speech the AP CM raised several issues including his concerns about NHPM. “Use of socioeconomic caste census for the Ayushman Bharat scheme would limit the number of beneficiaries in the state to just 56 lakh families,” Naidu said.
