Health Insurance: The expanding cover
A World Bank study on health insurance in India has recommended increasing health insurance coverage for both outpatient and inpatient care to include all poor and near-poor patients. It suggests a balanced approach, building upon infrastructure already available, augmenting it with accessible private capacity and utilising the lessons learned from the existing government-sponsored health schemes.
The World Bank study named ‘Government-sponsored Health Insurance in India: Are You Covered?’ carried out for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare says over 300 million people or more than 25 per cent of India’s population gained access to some form of health insurance by 2010, up from 55 million in 2003-04. More than 180 million of these were people below the poverty line. Read more