From a conversation with Amit Sengupta:

Critical of an insurance-based model, the late Amit Sengupta from Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) had said that it was not the right method to deliver universal healthcare. “The Ayushman Bharat campaign raises expectations, when its very model is flawed,” Sengupta had said in an interview with BusinessLine , about a month before he passed away in Goa last week.

The scheme was skewed towards secondary and tertiary (large) hospitals, he said. And though the money gets paid only on hospitalisation, people are getting “misguided” that the entire amount is coming to them, he said. Many ailments are treated in out-patient departments that don’t get covered under insurance and this has been borne out by global and State-level insurance models, he pointed out. He was of the view that the budgetary allocations don’t match the stated ambitions of the programme.

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