Pointing out that healthcare schemes face a resistance from states due to political reasons, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today proposed a federal institution like GST Council in the healthcare sector
As many as 3 lakh poor people have benefited from Ayushman Bharat health scheme in the last one-and-a-half months. Photo: PTI
New Delhi: Pointing out that healthcare schemes face a resistance from states due to political reasons, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday proposed a federal institution like GST Council in the healthcare sector.
As the health and social welfare schemes are implemented through states only with coordination of centre, Jaitley stated that such a federal body in healthcare sector would face least resistance from states.
“Healthcare in India needs a federal institution along the lines of the GST. State and Central Health Schemes should be merged to provide adequate resources and revenue for welfare of patients,” said Jaitley who was addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) health summit.
“The federal institution experiment of the GST having succeeded ....there are two other sectors which eminently require federal institutions of this kind,” said Jaitlety
The GST was constitutionally provided for, Jaitley said, those areas are not constitutionally provided for but political maturity can impose on governments to try that experiment. One is healthcare and one is agriculture.
“States and Centre both spend on healthcare and have their respective schemes. The Centre is also establishing institutes of eminence across the country. The Centre has implemented Ayushman Bharat, and states also have similar schemes. Several states have adopted the Ayushman Bharat scheme in parallel to their already existing schemes,” he said.
Healthcare is an area that eminently requires a federal institution, with a merger of existing state schemes and central resources. The focus has to be on welfare of people. States would be responsible for implementation with coordination from the centre, said Jaitley.
He further added that there are ample funds for the healthcare schemes and these resources from centre and states may be merged and so that the benefit of these merged resources starts to benefit patient population of the country.
“And if you have a federal institution, ultimately this is not a turf issue if my scheme is better than your scheme. It is essentially a welfare issue, whether the patients in my state are better than the patients in other states,” Jaitley said adding that every state would stand to benefit if this coordination with such a federal institution actually came up between the Centre and states.
In the run up to the implementation of India’s biggest indirect tax overhaul Goods and Services Tax on 1 July 2017, the Centre and states had agreed to set up a GST Council, chaired by Union Finance Minister and comprising finance ministers of all states.
Recollecting the conception and launch of Ayushman Bharat, the finance minister said when the scheme was being conceptualised, there were several discussions over whether it will succeed, how will private sector hospital treat patients, how will the queues and footfalls at hospitals be handled. “The scheme has proved to be really successful,” Jaitley said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 23 September launched the Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana. The ambitious scheme, also known as Modicare, aims to offer an annual health cover of ₹5 lakh per family, targeting more than 100 million families belonging to the poor and vulnerable sections of the population, based on Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) database.
As many as 3 lakh poor people have benefited from Ayushman Bharat health scheme in the last one-and-a-half months.
“With Ayushman Bharat, hope is being provided to the underserved sections of our population. The challenge ahead is successful implementation. We are moving from an un-pensioned, un-insured economy to one where citizen welfare is a priority,” Jaitley said.
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