New Delhi: The Modi government has decided to allow co-branding on Ayushman Bharat health cards with state health schemes as a solution to a thorny issue. This means that the card can now be used for both central and state health schemes.
So far, The card has only the Centre’s logo, even though the Ayushman Bharat scheme is funded by the states and the central government. 40:60 ratio, an issue to which some states objected.
in a statement issued Wednesday, Health Ministry said that the National Health Authority – Administrative authority for Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), the tertiary care arm of Ayushman Bharat (AB) , It has been decided to bring more integrity and uniformity by renaming the beneficiary cards issued under the scheme under a common name ‘Ayushman Card’.
Hence, the card which entitles eligible families to assist under PMJAY will now have logos of both AB and state government health schemes.
In another significant development, transgender people have now been added to the list of PMJAY beneficiaries.
Launched on 23 September 2018PMJAY gives an annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh to eligible families. West Bengal extracted After this plan in 2019, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the central government of taking all the credit for it. in october 2020He Told She would be willing to join again if the Center fully funded the scheme.
So far 30 out of 33 states have agreed to the co-branding scheme. Delhi, Odisha and West Bengal have opted to stay out of it.
“We want the states to also own the scheme. It is not political. Now there will be one common card for all health schemes. This card will work in any of the 25,000 empaneled hospitals. told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
The official said that under PMJAY, the states and union territories witnessed drastic changes in the design and nomenclature of beneficiary cards.
“This led to confusion among the beneficiaries and stakeholders such as empaneled hospitals, implementation support agencies, insurance companies and third party administrators. This hindered the formation of a unified identity for Ayushman Bharat PMJAY,” the official said.
Transgenders in PMJAY
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the NHA and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on Wednesday morning for inclusion of transgender people in the list of PMJAY beneficiaries.
Officials said the definition of family under PMJAY has been changed to enable such inclusion.
“The health cover of Rs 5 lakh is for one family. But for a transgender [person], a single person is a family. So we have changed the definition of family. This means a transgender person will be eligible for PMJAY and will have a health cover of Rs 5 lakh,” the ministry official had said earlier.
There are about 4.8 lakh transgender people registered with the Ministry of Social Justice. That registry is now a part of the PMJAY database, which was originally based on 2011 socioeconomic and caste census data.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)