The ‘Public’ in Public Health

By Vani S. KulkarniPHILADELPHIA, May 22 2017 (IPS) The discourse must move beyond a top-down approach to listen to the people and formulate best insurance practices Much ink has been spilled in documenting the inadequacy of budgetary allocations for public health insurance, specifically for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the world’s largest publicly-funded health insurance (PFHI) scheme. Though the 2017-18 budget allocation has marginally increased from last year’s revised estimates, it has declined relative to last year’s budgeted amount by about ₹500 crore. However, higher budgetary allocation can only constitute a small part of the solution to the scheme’s mixed, if not lacklustre, performance.Vani S. KulkarniUnder the scheme, a Below Poverty Line (BPL) family of five is entitled to more than 700 treatments and procedures at government-set prices, for an annual enrolment fee of ₹30. However, even nine years after its implementation, it has failed to cover a large number of targeted families — almost three-fifths of them. Their exclusion has been due to factors like the prevalent discrimination against disadvantaged groups; a lack of mandate on insurance companies to achieve higher enrolment rates; and an absence of oversight by government agencies.Increase in hospitalisation True, there has been a substantial increase in hospitalisation rates. However, it is unclear if it has enabled people to access the genuinely needed, and hitherto unaffor...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Aid Asia-Pacific Development & Aid Economy & Trade Featured Global Governance Headlines Health Inequity Women's Health Source Type: news