State Government Proposes to Increase CM’s health insurance scheme to Rs 2 Lakh

In the press conference held at Bhagwanpur in Haridwar district, Harish Rawat said, “The overwhelming response by the residents of all 13 districts have encouraged us to increase the existing limit of Rs.50,000 to Rs. 2 Lakhs on this state-sponsored scheme.”

Rawat further informed he had instructed top officials in the state health and family welfare and finance departments to create a proposal for increasing the threshold amount and evaluate the additional financial constraint on the state exchequer if the increment is applied.

The CM believes that the popular state-sponsored health insurance scheme will gain greater numbers of beneficiaries, if the threshold is elevated to Rs.2 Lakh per individual. The scheme will provide a greater relief to people who are currently treated for serious illnesses such as heart and kidney diseases, because the treatment for such illnesses is expensive and beyond the ability of most people in the state.

CM Rawat emphasized people will avail free-of-cost treatments at government-owned hospitals and Himalayan Institute of Medical and Research Center (HIMRC) at Jolly Grant in Dehradun, where patients are usually sent.

A recently conducted on-the-spot survey by a 50-member team of health and insurance sector officials revealed that the current number of beneficiaries availing the scheme has touched 15 Lakhs benchmark and the process is on to connect more beneficiaries to the scheme.  

A senior IAS officer in Health and Family Welfare department alleged, “Once the threshold amount is increased to Rs.2 Lakhs, the possibility of people availing the scheme will easily touch 50 Lakhs.”    

Adding to that, a senior health officer said, “Keeping healthy is the basic right of each individual and the health authorities has been entrusted with the responsibility to provide improved health care to all. Subsequently, the state government is making a sincere effort at allocating suitable budget to boost health and medical conditions in all the hospital centers of the state.”   

Source: This news was published on July 28, 2015 in timesofindia.indiatimes.com under the title: “CM’s health insurance scheme sum may be hiked to Rs 2 lakh”