Do you know what health coverage you’re already entitled to?

Health coverage can exist on paper and still fail to protect a family that does not know it is eligible. In today's 'YOUR INDIA' column, Santosh Nair writes on Ayushman Bharat, health insurance awareness and why checking entitlements before a medical emergency can matter.

A family in a small town pays for a relative’s surgery entirely out of pocket, borrowing part of the amount from a local moneylender. Months later, a neighbour mentions, almost casually, that the family was eligible for free treatment under Ayushman Bharat all along. Nobody had ever told them.

This is not a rare mistake. It is closer to the norm.

According to a survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Boston Consulting Group, roughly sixty-six per cent of people who were actually eligible for the PM-JAY scheme, India’s largest government health insurance programme, had never even heard of it. Separately, only about twenty-five per cent of all eligible beneficiaries across the country have formally enrolled to use it, even though enrolment itself typically costs nothing.

Read more: Why do Indians still pay so much for healthcare from their own pockets?

Read together, these numbers describe something India........

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