Reliance General Insurance will be this year’s insurance provider for the Karunya Arogya Suraksha Paddhati (KASP) that will replace the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) in the State from April 1.
Reliance won the tender for the running of the scheme by quoting an annual premium amount of ₹1,671, for health coverage up to ₹5 lakh.
KASP is Kerala’s new health financing scheme, a merger of all health subsidy/financial assistance schemes in the State, including Karunya and Centre’s Ayushman Bharat-Prime Minister’s Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY). It will provide a health insurance-assurance coverage of ₹5 lakh to all beneficiary families.
Approximately 40.96 lakh families in the State, currently covered under the RSBY-CHIS, will benefit from the new scheme also. They can get free health care from empanelled private and public sector hospitals in the State.
Expert panel
The government has already accepted the recommendations of the expert committee set up under the chairmanship of D. Narayana, Director, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, to work out the costing modalities of implementing KASP in alignment with the AB-PMJAY.
The committee had reported that the merger of all State financial aid schemes with the AB-PMJAY can provide a better health-care package and that it can be implemented without the State incurring a significant additional financial commitment.
The committee had estimated that the premium would have to be between ₹2,000 and ₹2,400. However, Reliance has now won the tender by quoting much lower than that, at ₹1,671.
If the AB-PMJAY benefit package provided 1,354 health packages in 23 medical specialities, the list of health packages arrived at under the merged KASP-AB scheme is 1,824.
Kerala is the only State to run the RSBY scheme continuosly since 2008. Till January 31 this year, 61 lakh beneficiaries have availed themselves of the free health insurance cover.