Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY, literally "National Health Insurance Programme",) is a government-run

health insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among ma ...

programme for the

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n poor. The scheme aims to provide health insurance coverage to the unrecognised sector workers belonging to the BPL category and their family members shall be beneficiaries under this scheme. It provides for cashless insurance for hospitalisation in public as well as private hospitals. The scheme started enrolling on April 1, 2008 and has been implemented in 25 states of India. A total of 36 million families have been enrolled as of February 2014. Initially, RSBY was a project under the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Now it has been transferred to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare from April 1, 2015 Every "

below poverty line Below Poverty Line is a benchmark used by the government of India to indicate economic disadvantage and to identify individuals and households in need of government assistance and aid. It is determined using various parameters which vary from s ...

" (BPL) family holding a yellow

ration card Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

pays registration fee to get a

biometric Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...

-enabled

smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

containing their fingerprints and photographs. This enables them to receive inpatient medical care of up to per family per year in any of the empanelled hospitals. Pre-existing illnesses are covered from day one, for head of household, spouse and up to three dependent children or parents. In the Union Budget for 2012-13, the government made a total allocation of towards RSBY. Although meant to cover the entire BPL population, (about 37.2 per cent of the total Indian population according to the Tendulkar committee estimates) it had enrolled only around 10 per cent of the Indian population by March 31, 2011. Also, it is expected to cost the exchequer at least a year to cover the entire BPL population. The scheme has won plaudits from the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

, the UN and the

ILO The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...

as one of the world's best health insurance schemes.

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

has shown interest in adopting the

based model for revamping its own social security system, the oldest in the world, by replacing its current, expensive, system of voucher based benefits for 2.5 million children., Citation: ''Currently revamped RSMY covers three crore workers...RSBY will be responsible for providing secondary healthcare benefits also... The Indo-German Social Security Programme, created as part of a co-operation pact between the two countries is guiding this collaboration. One of the big changes that this scheme entails is bringing investments to unserved areas. Most private investments in healthcare in India have been focused on tertiary or specialized care in urban areas. However, with RSBY coming in, the scenario is changing. New age companies like Glocal Healthcare Systems, a company based out of Kolkata and funded by Tier I Capital Funds like Sequoia Capital and Elevar Equity are setting up State of Art Hospitals in Semi Urban - rural settings. This trend can create the infrastructure that India's healthcare system desperately needs. As per report from Council for Social Development, it was found that this scheme has not been very effective. Increase in outpatient expenditure, hospitalization and medicines have compelled insurance companies to exclude several diseases out of their policies and thus making it not affordable for BPL families. Report also has found that most of the beneficiaries are from higher classes and not targeted beneficiaries. Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PMJAY) is proposed to subsume RSBY and provide an insurance cover of each to 10 crore families.

References

{{Authority control Health insurance in India Government schemes in India

See also

References