Jul 08 2014 : Mirror (Pune)
Heath schemes fail to take off : TISS
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Barely 30 per cent of the population in 22 districts of Maharashtra studied by Tata Institute of Social Studies (TISS) is aware of the health insurance and benefit schemes — Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and Rajeev Gandhi Jeevandayi Arogya Yojana.The TISS scholars covered 6,000 households and interviewed as many as 30,000 people as part of their study and came up with this revelation. If this was not dismal enough, the study found that the penetration of the smart cards, required to avail of these schemes, was only 11 per cent of the eligible population and of these too only 1.5 per cent had actually availed of the schemes using the card.
“This reflects a bad performance by RSBY launched in 2008 and the failure can be directly attributed to the insurance companies not doing their bit in making the people aware of the empanelled hospitals. The registration of beneficiaries was naturally minimal,” pointed out Dr Abhijit More, state co-convenor of Jan Aarogya Abhiyan (JAA), a network of healthrelated NGOs.
Reacting to the study, he added JAA will approach the government to fix onus of this failure on the insurance companies and have them fired from the schemes. “By now, the implementation of the schemes should have been 100 per cent. There should be proper monitoring and grievance cell too. The insurance companies should be ousted and autonomous public bodies should take over the management of these schemes,” More said.
“This reflects a bad performance by RSBY launched in 2008 and the failure can be directly attributed to the insurance companies not doing their bit in making the people aware of the empanelled hospitals. The registration of beneficiaries was naturally minimal,” pointed out Dr Abhijit More, state co-convenor of Jan Aarogya Abhiyan (JAA), a network of healthrelated NGOs.
Reacting to the study, he added JAA will approach the government to fix onus of this failure on the insurance companies and have them fired from the schemes. “By now, the implementation of the schemes should have been 100 per cent. There should be proper monitoring and grievance cell too. The insurance companies should be ousted and autonomous public bodies should take over the management of these schemes,” More said.
