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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Efficacy of government health cover scheme Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana under scanner -Vikas Dhoot

Efficacy of government health cover scheme Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana under scanner -Vikas Dhoot

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published Published on Oct 8, 2013   modified Modified on Oct 8, 2013
-The Economic Times


NEW DELHI: The government is having a rethink about the efficacy of its flagship health insurance scheme, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), which has earned a lot of critical acclaim from the likes of the World Bank, Harvard University and global think tanks.

The scheme offers healthcare benefits worth Rs 30,000 per year to a poor household that can be accessed at empanelled private and public hospitals across the country through a smart card.

Nearly 3.6 crore beneficiaries are part of the scheme. "The RSBY has scaled up a lot since its launch in 2008, but it hasn't been able to reach all the beneficiaries that it is intended for. A lot of people remain uncovered, even if we assume that 30% of the country is poor," said a labour ministry official.

The government could also rope in a specialist organisation to evaluate the impact of the scheme on health outcomes for the population. "The scheme has seen maximum enrollments in states like Kerala and Himachal Pradesh, where public healthcare spends were already high.

It doesn't seem to have had a similar impact in the Indo-Gangetic plains, which is where we need significantly better health care," the official explained. The government has extended the scheme to vulnerable workers such as domestic workers, rickshaw pullers and rag-pickers, but the modalities for enrolling some of them such as domestic workers are yet to be figured out.

"Getting permissions to extend the group to new worker groups is not an issue, the challenge is to get those people to enroll," the official said. "We are now collaborating with other government departments which have their own schemes for the poor, to ensure their beneficiaries get health cover too," he added.

The Rural Development ministry, which implements the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), has agreed to work with the labour ministry to ensure that eligible NREGA beneficiaries are extended the health insurance benefits.

The idea is to make institutions such as the gram panchayats responsible for ensuring that the eligible poor get their RSBY smart cards. "We need the local administrative machinery of block development officers, medical officers and Asha workers to help with enrollments," the official said, adding that it is not enough to just give smart cards to the poor, but it is also critical to make them aware on how to use them.

The labour ministry is also striving to pro-actively empanel more hospitals in different regions under the scheme, so that it's closer to beneficiaries in the hinterland. The health ministry has also been approached to help set quality standards for the scheme's healthcare benefits.


The Economic Times, 8 October, 2013, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/efficacy-of-government-health-cover-scheme-rashtriya-swasthya-bima-yojana-under-scanner/articleshow/2367706


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