Central Government Proposes New Senior Health Insurance Plan with Rs 1 Lakh Cover

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch this new scheme on 15^thAugust, 2015. 

This new scheme will bring relief to senior citizens as they often struggle to find a suitable health insurance cover. The plan would include an annual cover with the provision of cashless settlement of medical treatment expenses, and senior citizens can renew it annually. 

Senior citizens must subscribe to this upcoming RSBY scheme individually. The central government would subsidize the premium up to 90% for citizens falling below the poverty line via the cash transfer to their bank accounts 

Finance minister Arun Jaitley had previously announced in the Union Budget 2015-16 that the government would launch a Senior Citizen Welfare Fund, where the premium paid by the “vulnerable groups” will be subsidized. The unclaimed provident funds deposits will be used to meet the scheme’s objective.

Further, in his speech, the FM alleged, “The unclaimed PPF deposits are worth Rs 3,000 crore, while in EPF the corpus is worth Rs 6,000 crore. Although this new health scheme requires individual subscription, we predict that it would benefit a large pool of 2.7 crore BPL senior citizens above 60 years and the non-BPL senior citizens, too.”

The RSBY scheme would provide an insurance cover to BPL senior citizens worth Rs 30,000 and above. The FM is also contemplating of providing a cover worth Rs 1 Lakh annually for a family floater policy and that would include the senior citizens.

In his efforts to secure the citizens financially, the Prime Minister had launched the PMJDY on 15^th August 2014. Under this scheme each family would have a minimum of two bank accounts, and since then 16.92 crore accounts have been opened.

Source: This news was published on July 23, 2015 in financialexpress.com under the title: “New senior health insurance plan with Rs 1 lakh cover in the offing”