It is a methodological flaw to conclude from data which shows a rise in the incidence of out-of-pocket medical expenses that the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana is ineffective. A response to Sakthivel Selvaraj, Anup K Karan, “Why Publicly- Financed Health Insurance Schemes Are Ineffective in Providing Financial Risk Protection” (EPW, 17 March 2012).

This study focuses on the method the National Family Health Survey-3 adopts to compute national wealth quintiles using the wealth index score of households as a basis.