9 months ago
NITI Aayog highlights health insurance challenges for middle class
Dr. Vinod K Paul from NITI Aayog spoke about how many middle-class families in India can't afford health insurance.
These families spend about Rs 16,000-17,000 each month, but insurance costs Rs 24,000-66,000 per year.
This is a big problem because these families aren't poor enough to get free insurance from the government, but they aren't rich enough to buy private insurance.
Dr. Paul said that making affordable insurance for these families is very difficult.
He also talked about how important it is to prevent diseases like diabetes and obesity.
He mentioned that the government should take care of primary healthcare, which is most of the healthcare needed.
30% of India's population, over 40 crore people, lack health insurance as they are not poor enough for PMJAY but can't afford private insurance.
Middle-class families with monthly expenditures of Rs 16,000-17,000 cannot afford insurance premiums ranging from Rs 24,000 to Rs 66,000.
PMJAY covers the bottom two quintiles, around Rs 15,000 monthly, leaving the next two quintiles without affordable insurance options.
NITI Aayog is working on policy enablers to create affordable insurance products for the 'missing middle' segment.
Dr. Paul emphasized the importance of preventing non-communicable diseases and strengthening primary healthcare.
- Who
- Dr Vinod K Paul, NITI Aayog Member for Health, Nutrition and Education
- What
- Challenges in providing health insurance for the 'missing middle' segment
- Where
- Ahmedabad University’s Bagchi School of Public Health
- When
- During the Ahmedabad Dialogue at Ahmedabad University on Saturday
- Why
- To address the gap in health insurance coverage for middle-class families
Key facts
- Missing Middle
- 30% of India's population, over 40 crore people
- Monthly Expenditure
- Rs 16,000-17,000 for middle class families
- Insurance Premium
- Rs 24,000-66,000 for Rs 5 lakh cover
- PMJAY Coverage
- Bottom two quintiles, around Rs 15,000 monthly
- Event
- Ahmedabad Dialogue at Ahmedabad University
- Speaker
- Dr Vinod K Paul, NITI Aayog Member for Health
- NITI Aayog Report
- Health Insurance for the Missing Middle (2021)
Quotes
Dr. Vinod K. Paul
Member for Health, Nutrition and Education at the NITI Aayog
“We want to see what we can do to make an affordable product for what NITI Aayog called in its report “health insurance for the missing middle” and coined the term “the missing middle” which has caught the imagination of people and ever since 2018 when PMJAY came, this has been our guilt that we couldn’t cover the rest. In terms of policy enablers, we are trying to find products that can meet the need for privately funded insurance for this segment – the two quintiles above those benefiting from PMJAY. And we haven’t really come up with products that can work. The reason is that the premium works out to be a lot – almost double the monthly expenditure of these families. So it’s a challenge”
indianexpress.com
“My team did an investigation into private insurance that offers as much cover as PMJAY which is Rs 5 lakh per family, everyone included. And we made phone calls to 8-10 companies. What would it cost? The typical product starts with Rs 24,000 and goes to Rs 42,000, Rs 48,000 and Rs 66,000. These are the quotations we received. Let’s bring this in perspective of the households we are trying to cover. If we look at population distribution by quintiles (dividing a population into five equal strata), PMJAY covers the bottom two quintiles. Using household expenditure survey data, this corresponds to around Rs 15,000 a month, per household.”
indianexpress.com
