Kerala has once again won the Arogya Manthan award 2023, for providing free medical care to the maximum number of people, a statement issued by the office of Health Minister Veena George here has said.
Arogya Manthan 2023 is an event being celebrated by the National Health Agency to mark the 5th year of the Centre’s flagship scheme, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY)
The State’s health insurance scheme in alignment with AB PM-JAY, Karunya Arogya Suraksha Padhati, won the award for the scheme with the highest utilisation by beneficiaries.
Apart from the award for the State which provided free medical care to the maximum people under KASP (scheme utilisation), Kerala also received the award for the best service provision for the blind beneficiaries of KASP, by introducing treatment cards in Braille.
This is the third consecutive year that Kerala is winning the Arogya Manthan award for the best scheme utilisation, the statement said.
The award is an acknowledgement of the State government’s untiring efforts to provide free medical care to everyone, Ms. George said.
She said that in the past two years, the government provided free medical care worth ₹3,200 crore through KASP and allied schemes. In two years, 13 lakh beneficiaries of KASP were provided free care through 30 lakh treatment claims.
Though the previous year, the NHA provided just ₹151 crore as its share under KASP, the rest of the amount was borne entirely by the State. At present, the treatment benefits of over 20 lakh beneficiaries, out of the total 42 lakh beneficiaries of KASP, are entirely borne by the State, the statement said.
KASP is being implemented in Kerala by the State Health Agency, which has empanelled 613 hospitals in the public and private sector to provide free treatment to KASP beneficiaries.
The other side
While the State takes pride in having provided free treatment to the maximum number of beneficiaries under KASP, it is at the cost of public hospitals, which are struggling to stay afloat because of the huge claim reimbursement arrears that the government owes the institutions.
According to the latest figures provided by the Health Minister in the Assembly, the KASP overdues to public hospitals is a whopping ₹822.42 crore. The government also owes ₹208.73 crore to private hospitals as claim reimbursement dues.
This is apart from the fact that Kerala accounts for the highest number of unsettled claims in the country worth ₹985.28 crore, from 8,43,790 claims, according to the CAG report
While public hospitals, prominently the government medical colleges, are on the verge of collapse because of the huge unpaid dues, private hospitals have declared that they can no longer provide free treatment under KASP until the government clears the pending payments .
While pushing the narrative about providing free care to maximum people, the fact that KASP is a huge drain on the State’s coffers and that the scheme is being run without any medical audit or death audit (according to CAG report) is being brushed under the carpet.
