Brushing aside criticism of the newly announced mega healthcare scheme, Niti Aayog Vice- Chairman Rajiv Kumar has said it is a "game changer" and revenue from the 1 per cent additional cess would be enough to meet the funding needs.Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget for 2018-19 announced the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) announced to provide health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh to over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. All these combined would be more than adequate to meet the financing needs of welfare programme.The Centre and the state governments, Kumar added, will only have to bear the insurance premium which was likely to be very moderate. It will benefit from bulk procurement and competition. "Like all central schemes it will have 60-40 ratio. Those states which want to join join the scheme will contribute 40 per cent.

Source: Economic Times February 04, 2018 06:33 UTC