Prima facie, the health insurance scheme is a bold move that could ameliorate the lives of hundreds of millions. Recently, the World Health Organization and the World Bank published Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2017 Global Monitoring Report, as per which India did not fare too well. About 16 per cent of Indian households spend over 10 per cent of their income on health care in case of crises. Nearly 4 per cent spend as high as 25 per cent when emergency strikes, in contrast to South Africa and Russia where merely 0.1 per cent and 0.6 per cent households spend a similar amount. As per two different poverty lines, 4.2 per cent or 4.6 per cent of households end up impoverished because of excessive spending on health care. The above percentages imply that of the 240 million households in India, 50 million are ruined by costs of health care. In theory, insurance could save these borderline cases — people who are often pushed over the edge by simple diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea.