India is set to increase its public health spending to 2.5 per cent of its GDP by 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday, as he asserted that women, children and youth will continue to remain at the heart of every policy, programme and initiative of the government. Addressing the 2018 Partners Forum in New Delhi, Modi said the high out-of-pocket expenditure incurred by families to avail medical care in India worried his government and to address the issue, it launched the Ayushman Bharat Yojana, which has a two-fold strategy. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana provides cashless health insurance cover up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year, covering 500 million poor citizens.
"This number is almost equal to the population of Canada, Mexico and the US taken together. We have already provided free treatment worth Rs 700 crore to 5 lakh families under this scheme within 10 weeks…
