New Delhi,
A day after the Centre announced its mega health insurance scheme ‘Ayushman Bharat’ in the Union Budget, the government think-tank NITI Aayog today started working on its blueprint and claimed a detailed plan would be ready within three to four months.

The ruling BJP assumes the scheme, which aims to target around 50 crore people and provide Rs 5 lakh annual coverage to each family for secondary and tertiary-care hospitalisation, could prove to be a gamechanger in the 2019 General Election.
Sources said the scheme was likely to be ready by May-June for its launch either on August 15 or October 2. It would cost the exchequer around Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000 crore with the annual premium being in the range of Rs 1,000-Rs 1,200 per family. The cost in the launch year could be around Rs 3,000 crore.

Dr VK Paul, NITI member, said, “Ayushman Bharat will be on the lines of ‘one nation, one scheme’ policy. It will galvanise the health care system as the plan will be linked with 1.5 lakh wellness centres across the country where free drugs and diagnostics will be made available to citizens.

It will be paperless and linked with Aadhaar, though lack of the unique identification number will not bar people from availing its benefits.”

NITI officials indicated that Ayushman Bharat would subsume Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and give states an option to choose between the trust and private hospital mode for extending benefits to those insured, who would be identified on the basis of deprivation following a scrutiny of the Socio-Economic Caste Census-2011.

“Ayushman Bharat will be fully supported by the government with no cap on family size,” said NITI Aayog Adviser Alok Kumar. He said a task force would soon be constituted to roll out the scheme under 60:40 cost-sharing model between the Centre and states. While the Union Government would bear a premium burden of around Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 crore, the rest would have to be paid by states.