Over $1 billion spent on 4.6 million treatments in a year-- the story of the world's largest government-funded healthcare programme

• Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), gave free medical treatment worth ₹7,500 crore (a little over $1 billion) within a year after launch.
• According to government figures, 60% of the total funds were utilized in intensive medical treatments by colleges.
• The scheme targets more than 500 million beneficiaries to reduce the catastrophic expenses on availing medical healthcare.

India's flagship health scheme, Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), gave free medical treatment worth ₹7,500 crore (a little over $1 billion) within a year after launch.

According to government figures, 60% of the total funds were utilized in intensive medical treatments by colleges.

A year ago, the government launched the "world's largest government-funded healthcare program," setting aside ₹2,400 crore for the year 2018-19. The government later increased the budget by 166% to ₹6,400 crore for the current financial year ending March 2020.

The scheme targets more than 500 million beneficiaries to reduce the catastrophic expenses on availing medical healthcare.

Families of patients saved ₹12,000 crore

The idea was to have cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service. The scheme promises to cover ₹500,000 per family per year to avail services in government hospital and other some of the partner private hospital.

As of now, the beneficiary families have saved ₹12,000 crore owing to PM-JAY, claims the government.However, the scheme leaves out middle class people in India -- that makes up 28% of the country's population.

So far now 32 states and Union Territories in India are a part of the scheme. And Delhi, Odisha, Telangana and West Bengal are yet to implement it.

“More than 17% of Indian population spend at least 10% of household budgets for health services”,said the government statement in a press release released on September 22.”

Separately, UN has also warned that about 5 billion people being deprived of primary healthcare by 2030.

See also:
Medical errors take five lives every minute and cost $40 billion annually: WHO
5 billion people will miss basic healthcare as countries hold back investments, says WHO