Utilisation and financial protection for hospital care under publicly funded health insurance in three states in Southern India

Background Many LMICs have implemented Publicly Funded Health Insurance (PFHI) programmes to improve access and financial protection. The national PFHI scheme implemented in India for a decade has been recently modified and expanded to cover free hospital care for 500 million persons. Since increase in annual cover amount is one of the main design modifications in the new programme, the relevant policy question is whether such design change can improve financial protection for hospital care. An evaluation of state-specific PFHI programmes with vertical cover larger than RSBY can help answer this question. Three states in Southern India - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been pioneers in implementing PFHI with a large insurance cover.