CII WELCOMES HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEME FOR THE POOR

Chennai: The State Council of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Thursday welcomed the State government move to introduce Health Insurance Scheme for Life Saving Treatments for the poor and low-income groups. Addressing newsmen, Manikam Ramaswami, CII-TNSC Chairman, said “this gesture of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi will go a long way in not only improving the physical health of the people, but also the financial health as healthcare costs is one of the most important reasons for indebtedness.”

“Besides, it will ensure that Social Development Indices will accelerate faster than Gross State Domestic Product growth rate which alone is sustainable. CII is particularly happy to note that the government has included lifestyle diseases, which is the largest contributing factor to hospitalisation, and high cost of healthcare,” he said. According to Mr. Ramaswami, the idea of preventive healthcare for lifestyle diseases (veedu thedi vandhu varumun kaappom) was mooted at ‘Healthcare for All’ Summit jointly organised by the State government.

As against Varumun Kappom, preventive healthcare for lifestyle diseases is seen as a means to substantially reduce the need for hospitalisation and cover all healthcare costs through an innovative insurance scheme by roping in private healthcare providers in addition to government hospitals. Mr. Ramaswami called for appointment of healthcare worker in the ratio of 1:4000 people to carry out check-up of urine-sugar, urine-salt and blood pressure at doorsteps and inclusion of more number of players under Public-Private-Partnership to give wider choice to employees to select the appropriate insurance scheme.

By February end, CII-TNSC will submit its recommendations to the State government on Employees State Insurance Scheme’s quality of service, its location and the expectation of the employees among other things. The survey was necessitated as most of the employees said that they have spent more than the ESIC money and the services were not satisfactory.

Source: The Hindu