-The Hindu The National Health Protection Scheme is disconnected from primary care. It also needs to be scaled up It is unusual for a health programme to become the most prominent feature of a Union Budget. The previous government missed the bus when it failed to implement the recommendations of the High-Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage (2011). Yet, those recommendations resonate in the Budget of 2018, with commitment to universal...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Even as stent prices have been capped, the cost of the three main consumables used in angioplasty have, in many cases, become even more expensive than stents as Hospitals try to make up for the huge margins they lost on stents. The modus operandi is same as in the case of stents before the price cap. Though the consumables are bought at a third or less...

-TheWire.in Why has India chosen the path of expanding medical insurance instead of a more comprehensive approach to health? The concern with rising inequities in access to medical care, rising out-of-pocket expenditures and unmet treatment needs have been addressed with yet another targeted medical insurance scheme for poor households. The idea of a targeted medical insurance is not new. Several southern states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka had introduced such schemes many...

-The Financial Express Budget 2018: The government claims that this is the Budget for a “new India”.However, this vision excludes rural workers, small & marginal farmers and the unorganised sector. Many claims are being made about the farm sector. The fact is even the “optics” only partially meet these. The substance of this Budget shows how little it caters to farmers, and the economically & politically marginalised. The demand of farmers agitating...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Investors may be losing sleep over the re-entry of long-term capital gains tax on equities, but analysts feel that the worrylines are actually running deeper than you realise. The mega ambitious healthcare scheme announced in the Union Budget on Thursday is one such point of concern -- which aims to benefit 10 crore poor families for secondary and tertiary care Hospitalisation. Sceptics are having a field day,...