Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday launched the world’s biggest health insurance scheme, promising free coverage for half a billion of India’s poorest citizens ahead of national elections next year.
The bottom 40 percent of India’s 1.25 billion people would be covered under the flagship program, dubbed “Modicare,” unveiled in the federal budget earlier this year.
The 100 million lowest-income families will be provided 500,000 rupees (US$6,900) in annual health insurance to treat serious ailments.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Modi handed medical cards out at the launch in Ranchi, capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand, calling it a historic day for India.
“We want to strengthen the hands of the poor and stand shoulder to shoulder with them in pursuit of good health,” he posted on Twitter.
The scheme is expected to cost the central and 29 state governments US$1.6 billion per year in total, and funding is to be increased gradually according to demand.
India’s overburdened public health system is plagued by a shortage of facilities and doctors and most people use private clinics and hospitals if they can afford to.
More than 60 percent of the average family’s spending goes on medicines and healthcare, the government estimates. Many of the poorest just go without care.
A report published this month by The Lancet medical journal found substandard healthcare was responsible for an estimated 1.6 million deaths a year in India — the highest in the world.
Critics have questioned how the government plans to fund such an enormous safety net.
“This is going to be another scam. It will benefit only private insurance companies. The citizen of the country will realize later that it is nothing but an election gimmick,” said Sanjay Nirupam from the main opposition Congress Party.
However, K. K. Aggarwal, a cardiologist and former president of the Indian Medical Association, said “politicking over the scheme should stop.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS