Health insurance

The government of India has taken a series of steps to ensure India becomes a thriving welfare state. However, still, we see that like many countries in south Asia India also accounts for less than 2 percent of budget allocation for healthcare. The Indian government’s flagship scheme, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), popularly known as the Golden Health Card, is a significant step towards providing affordable and accessible healthcare to millions of Indians across the length and breadth of the country. This is a critical step as the patients can now avail of the healthcare facilities in government as well as private hospitals as a cashless entry. All this looks quite fine and dandy and it appears India is finally progressing towards becoming a welfare state in as far as healthcare infrastructure is concerned. However, a few lingering questions remain – the much talked about Golden card is not accepted by a majority of private hospitals, and those hospitals who accept the Golden card as a mode of cashless insurance massively compromise on the quality. There are reports of making patients stay beyond the stipulated time. We have a few examples in the valley where a few private hospitals look worse than the government hospitals. As regards the privately insured patients there is a fully functional mafia of corporate hospitals who make patients linger on for many days in the hospital to extract the maximum chunk of the insured amount subjecting patients to dozens of needless tests, scaring attendants that a few more days stay at the hospital was necessary. We are hearing of hospitals in Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi where there is an incentive for doctors who make patients stay in hospital for maximum number of days in a month – sooner or later we are sure that this trend will catch up in Kashmir as well. Initiating schemes like the Golden card is a revolutionary step for the aspirations of becoming a welfare state where healthcare is given a priority. However, the actual implementation on the ground leaves a lot to be desired. The very fact that majority of hospitals do not accept it speaks volumes about how popular it is on the ground.