Leave it alone

By imposing a co-payment system, the government is all set to sabotage its health insurance scheme.

The government is learnt to have decided to make the beneficiaries of its health insurance scheme pay a certain percentage of the total treatment cost, claiming that the all-free scheme has encouraged them to seek unnecessary diagnostic tests. If it gets implemented, the co-payment plan will not just be an injustice to those who have already enrolled in the scheme, but will also act as a deterrent for those who want to join. Nearly 10 years after the scheme was first rolled out, the enrolment rate stands at a mere 16 percent. Despite the ever-burgeoning costs of medical care in private hospitals, people still prefer to pay the premium rather than go to government hospitals as the latter are too mismanaged. Apart from managing them well, the way to bring the patients back to the government hospital is to institute a cost-effective and well-functioning insurance scheme.