The Government’s flagship health insurance scheme for the poor has sharply reduced out-of-pocket expenditure in three States, says an evaluation by German enterprise GIZ and independent research bo

This article stresses that any impact assessment of health insurance schemes is sensitive to the methodology as well as the data used for analysis. It is based on two recent studies evaluating the impact of publicly-fi nanced health insurance schemes on benefi ciaries.

Guwahati: Moved by the plight of children of AIDS victims, Governor of Assam, Janaki Ballav Patnaik, on Tuesday announced a grant of Rs 5 lakh to help Assam Network of Positive (ANP+) people, an NGO working for these children, according to a Raj Bhavan source.

The Governor along with first lady Jayanti Patnaik, on Tuesday met a delegation comprising of workers, children and officials of Assam Network of Positive People (ANP+) at the Raj Bhavan here.

Meghalaya Government officially launched the universal medical health insurance for all the residents of the State at a public function here yesterday, stating it is the first of its kind in the co

The Rajasthan Construction Labourer Welfare Board on Thursday decided to implement the national health insurance scheme for the unorganised sector workers and announced that it would pay a major portion of the premium to connect stakeholders with the scheme and encourage them to get insured.

Minister of State for Labour Mangilal Garasia, who presided over the Board’s meeting here, said a scheme announced last year for reimbursement of medical expenses on treatment of serious diseases would continue to be operative under the national health insurance scheme.

A study conducted of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana in 2009-10 in Amaravati district of Maharashtra shows that there are critical concerns in the very design and implementation of the programme that may make it challenging for RSBY to reach its target of below the poverty line population. Thus, the poor in the more remote blocks and villages may be ignored for easier to reach potential enrollees as the premia paid for all are the same.

The Third People's Health Assembly was held in July in Cape Town, South Africa with its theme of "Health for All Now". Developing countries which transformed public health systems under the structural adjustment policies into insurance-based health models have failed in providing healthcare to the poor. Where does India stand in relation to the ruling United Progressive Alliance's commitment to take public health spending to 3% of the GDP by 2012?

The Delhi Cabinet today gave its approval for implementing the 'Dilli Annashree Yojana', announced in the Budget 2012-13, in order to provide food security to two lakh vulnerable households, not co

Activists are up in arms against the Planning Commission for its proposal in the 12Th Five Year Plan document that seeks to restructure the health care system in a way that it would be handing it over to the corporate sector.

“It is particularly problematic that the Plan document to be adopted by the end of this month, invokes the concept of Universal Health Care, while it actually proposes a strategy that is far removed from the basic tenets of universal health care,” Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, a conglomerate of rights-based health activists, said here on Wednesday.

A reply to T R Dilip's assertion (EPW, 5 May 2012) that Sakthivel Selvaraj and Anup K Karan (EPW, 17 March 2012) arrived at unacceptable conclusions due to methodological fl aws with regard to assessing the effectiveness of publicly-fi nanced health insurance schemes.

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