CHENNAI: The announcements made in the last full Budget of the Central government are good, especially those on establishing 1.5 lakh wellness centres and in implementing insurance schemes to 50 crore people. But, the government may face challenges if both these ambitious schemes are implemented by various departments.
The major shortfall in the insurance scheme is that it talks only about the poor families while saying precious little about making health insurance compulsory for all, claims Dr K.K. Aggarwal, immediate past national president of
IMA.
“About ten per cent of them are covered by ESI. The government must have made it compulsory for the rest. What will happen now is that the poor people will be covered under the insurance scheme while the rich will not be insured. So, the Centre should clearly say that ten per cent (beneficiaries) will be covered and for the rest it would be made compulsory just like road tax that is mandatory. So, when you step out of the house, you have insurance coverage,” Dr Aggarwal said.
Secondly, the government must add in the Budget, some portions from the environment, surface transport, chemical and fertiliser, nutrition and health ministries which all independently carry out health schemes, and bundle them under one subject, he said and insisted that all the health programmes announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Budget speech, should be considered 'together as one Budget.' “Otherwise it would amount to mere distribution of work by various departments. This suggestion would dispense with too many departments handling the same subject,” Dr Aggarwal claimed.
Thirdly, when it comes to planning for health schemes, the government should have the concept of one health and include not only human health but also the health of agriculture or plant health and the entire ecosystem.
