Arogya Bhagya Scheme in Karnataka (Free Health Service)

Apply Arogya Bhagya Scheme in Karnataka to Launch Health Card (Free Health Service)

The Karnataka Arogya Bhagya Scheme is a scheme under which the state government of Karnataka shall provide free health care to the people of the state. Both private hospitals and government hospitals shall provide this service. Months ahead of the elections, the government decided to issue health cards to bring more people under health coverage.

Launch details

This scheme will launch on Nov 2017 – the Kannada Rajyotsava day. It is one of the latest in some of the schemes given introduced by Congress in the state. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s government and the Karnataka cabinet approved this scheme on Monday.

Key features of the scheme

Number of people: Under this scheme around 14 million households shall receive the benefit. This equates to around 1.4 crore families who will get cashless treatment. The scheme assumes that each family will have an average of 5 members each.
Cards issue: People will get cards issued under their name. This card will be linked to their Aadhar card and that is how they will get the health coverage.
Scheme coverage: The population of Kerala stands at 6.5 crore and assuming each family has about 5 persons, there are 1.05 crore households who will not have to pay for their treatment. This means this scheme fully covers around 83% of the entire population of the state.
Emergency treatment: For both accidental and medical or surgical treatment, these are services shall be available, including for minor operations or treatments.
Rates: The government shall fix the rates with which the private hospitals shall treat the tertiary and secondary procedures. This will ensure that there is a balance in both the sectors.

Budget allocation –

The budget for this scheme is set at Rs. 869.4 crore for the unified scheme for the first year. The budget for the coming years is yet to be decided.

Beneficiary

Categories of people: There will be two categories of people under this scheme – Category A (which will include farmers, laborers of unorganized sector, deprived households, SC/ST people, and government employees, members of cooperative societies, elected representatives and media persons) and Category B. Category B will include all those people who were not included in Category A.
Contribution: The people who come under Category A will not have to contribute anything. But those who belong to Category B will have to pay Rs. 300 per person if they are from rural areas and Rs. 700 per person if they are from urban areas.
Difference of subsidy as per categories: Those patients who fall under Category A will get fully cashless treatment whereas those who fall under Category B will get only 30% reimbursement from the government.

In addition to the above, the Category A people would also include people who work as auto rickshaw drivers, rag pickers, street vendors, construction workers, sanitation works, MNREGA workers, animal bite victims, teachers from aided schools, farmer households, mid-day meal workers, Asha workers and more.

How it works

You will have to pay a contribution to the state government if you belong to a certain category. If not, you will not have to pay any contribution.
After that, you will receive free treatment from some specific private or government hospitals under this scheme as per the ‘treatment first and payment next’ option.
More information will be revealed soon about the types of diseases that will be covered under this scheme. But for now, nearly half of the state’s populace can take its benefit.

This move comes at a time when there is an electoral vote coming. This move is said to be a bold move as it will surely put a dent in the state government’s pocket but it will also ensure that a lot of people receive health coverage. Hence it will make the government have good will for the upcoming elections. Either way this step is widely appreciated.