Pricing, service will determine the success of national health insurance scheme

G Naga Sridhar Updated on February 02, 2018

Hyderabad, February 1

 

The success of the new flagship national health insurance scheme will depended on pricing and service, among others.

According to the Budget, the scheme will cover 10 crore vulnerable families and provide a cover of up to ₹5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation. It is likely to benefit 50 crore people.

“In principle, 10 crore families is a big number and the scheme is positive,” Bhargav Dasgupta, MD & CEO, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, told BusinessLine, on Thursday.

The full structure of the scheme should be seen to ascertain the likely impact of the scheme on various stakeholders, he added.

Earlier schemes had an upper limit of ₹30,000 which could cover tertiary care. The scope of the new scheme ismuch larger and will help in the penetration of health insurance.

There will be challenges, too, going by the experience of existing low-cost insurance schemes.

Pricing will be the key for customers and industry. If the government prefers to implement it through a tender-driven process, which is the most-common practice, some players may resort to aggressive pricing.

Published on February 01, 2018
TOPICS
Union Budget
health insurance

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