Health insurance for India’s poor
Meeting the challenge with information technology
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A publication in the German Health Practice Collection Writer Stuart Adams Rate this Publication (1 - 5 Stars) ( 4 Votes ) |
Short version - English (4 pp. 332 kB)
Long version - English (40 pp. 1.4 MB)
India is home to more than 1.2 billion people and almost one-third live below the poverty line (BPL). In October 2007, the Government launched a national insurance scheme or, in Hindi, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). Germany - represented by the former GTZ and the new GIZ - and the World Bank are India’s two principle partners in the provision of technical support to RSBY’s design and implementation process.
The scheme’s first five-year target is, by the end of 2012, to provide all India’s BPL families with enough health insurance to avoid catastrophic health expenses due to serious illness or injury. Families pay a nominal fee for enrolment or renewal but, otherwise, the policy provides cash-and-paperwork-free hospitalization, including overnight stays and day surgeries and treatments not normally provided as part of out-patient care in smaller clinics. Just over three years after roll-out-began, all but one of India’S 28 States have opted into RSBY. As of 20 May 2011, there were 23.5 million BPL families in possession of Smart Cards and 8,300 empanelled hospitals where they could use these to access health services.






