By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The State government will introduce a universal health insurance scheme soon.
Informing this here on Monday, Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma said, ”under the proposed universal health insurance, the coverage would be Rs one lakh per year and Rs two lakh per year in case of critical situation,”
He said the objective to introduce universal health insurance was to ensure all categories of people a better medical treatment.
“The new concept is expected to help upgrade the existing health infrastructure in the State,” Dr Sangma said hoping that people, to be covered under the new scheme, would be attracted to the government hospitals.
He said the beneficiaries of the scheme would be issued ‘smart cards’ to avail health insurance and need not pay it when they are admitted to government-run hospitals and empanelled private hospitals.
Dr Sangma said initial discussion had been held with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for funding and on the need to create a corpus fund in order to implement the universal health insurance scheme.
” We will also approach the Central government apart from the ADB for the project, adding that bidding process would be conducted soon to select an insurance provider to implement the scheme,” the Chief Minister said.
“The State Government is also in the process of up-scaling the quantum of coverage under the recently-introduced Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) scheme for BPL and APL families to Rs one lakh,” he said.
Under RSBY, each BPL family can avail health insurance benefits upto Rs 30,000 per year in which 90 per cent cost of the premium borne by the Central government and 10 per cent by the State government. The BPL families need to pay around Rs 30 to 50 as their share of premium for registration to avail the benefits under the scheme.
