Govt plans health cover for all Indians

A committee of experts appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and headed by K Srinath Reddy, chief of the Public Health Foundation of India, is working on a public-funded health insurance scheme that will cover every Indian. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jan 17, 2011, 02:05:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A health insurance scheme that will cover every Indian is on the cards.

A committee of experts appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and headed by K Srinath Reddy, chief of the Public Health Foundation of India, is working on a public-funded scheme, likely to be introduced in the 12th Five Year Plan, starting in 2012-13.

“We are looking at a scheme where people will pay premium depending on their income,” said Planning Commission member secretary Sudha Pillai.

For instance, the government may pay the entire premium for those below the poverty line. For the better off, the government’s contribution will diminish the higher the individual's income.

This scheme is likely to cover not only hospitalisation expenses, but also treatment undergone at listed hospitals. Most private health insurance schemes cover only hospitalisation. It will also provide cover for conditions private schemes frequently do not — like heart ailments and pregnancy.

The scheme also intends the Centre to pay a higher premium for women — across all sections.

There is already a health insurance scheme under the Rashtriya Swasth Bima Yojana for BPL families. Close to half of 6 crore BPL families are covered under this scheme. In the next step, all those enrolled in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will be covered, followed by women enrolled in over 10 lakh angwanwadi centers around the country.

According to the National Sample Survey Office, an Indian spends 80 % of his health expenses on buying medicine. The high cost of treatment makes health services unaffordable to many.

Presently, over 90 % Indians are not covered by any public or private health insurance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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