-The Hindu Business Line The Ayushman Bharat programme must aim to reverse poverty caused by healthcare expenses The state of India’s healthcare system is somewhat dichotomous — the country is a global supplier of life-saving, affordable and good quality generic medicines, yet lakhs of families are driven into poverty because they are forced to spend much of their earnings and savings on medications to treat chronic and life-threatening diseases. The poor, particularly,...

-Livemint.com The new subscribers to EPFO likely represent formalization of a section of the regular workforce rather than new additions to it New Delhi: Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the jobs debate in India has heated up once again. Spokespersons of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) claim the Indian economy has created an unprecedented number of jobs over the past couple of years. The opposition as well as some independent...

-TheWire.in The government has fixed the insurance reimbursements for 1,354 medical procedures under its massive new scheme. They say they won’t revise this any further. New Delhi: Despite protests from the private health sector, that the government’s reimbursements to them under the massive new Health insurance scheme are too low, the government has “frozen” these rates and is unlikely to change them. “The package rates are now frozen,” said health secretary Preeti Sudan. Dinesh...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre's proposed rates of reimbursement to hospitals for various medical procedures under the National Health Protection Scheme are low and unsustainable and could compromise patient safety, an organisation representing hospitals has told the government. The Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI) has said the proposed rates are in general significantly lower than the costs that large tertiary-care hospitals typically incur on medical procedures.     The NHPS, announced...

-Livemint.com It is important to give preference to those approaches that help the poor the most for every rupee spent, no matter how they are labelled Sometimes in life, it is clear that the direct approach isn’t the best one. This is true in many areas, even when it comes to policymaking. Take, as an example, the area of extreme poverty. It seems logical, at first, that the most effective response should...