Nov 12, 2024
New Delhi: Last week, the Supreme Court instructed the Centre to respond to a plea seeking traditional medicine to be included in PM Jan Arogya Yojana. Bringing it into the public health insurance scheme shouldn’t face insurmountable obstacles. Gol is, actually, in the process of incorporating holistic methods of healing in free health insurance for poor households.
The financial obligation of the move is not expected to be high, given the nature of non-invasive indigenous therapies. These could, in fact, have positive externalities by arresting non-communicable lifestyle diseases that respond favourably to preventive care.
Gol is in consultation with stakeholders over acceptable costs of such therapy and the medicines they prescribe. Separately, it is collaborating with WHO on optimising the contribution of traditional medicine to global health.
Inclusion of AYUSH in an insurance scheme that covers 120 mn households will also have a favourable impact on traditional medicine. Efficiency benchmarks will need to be set for the separate lines of treatment. This requires a more robust understanding of the empiricism on which these therapies are based.
Capacity for medicine production will be a function of the cost structure acceptable to PM-JAY. This capacity can come up in the private sector on demand for traditional medicines propped up by state-funded insurance. Overall, this segment of therapy will gain from formalisation of training and production processes.
India can rely on a strong base of traditional therapies to keep its population in reasonable health. This improves prospects for widening coverage of public-funded health insurance. By making traditional medicine a prong in its affordable healthcare initiative, India will be better placed to tackle accelerated ageing after hitting peak population.
Insurance can drive capacity building in public and private healthcare, and all options must be explored to keep coverage costs low. Increasing health insurance coverage helps to bring down the bill for the country as a whole.
Source: Economic Times