Mukhyamantri Swasthya Bima Yojna (MSBY), the flagship social welfare scheme of former Chief Minister Harish Rawat which was facing uncertain future in the wake of the present political uncertainty got a new lease of life on Tuesday with the Government deciding to continue it in its present form for a period of next three months.
On the day the Principal Secretary health, Om Prakash chaired a meeting of top health department officials and discussed the scheme. It is learnt that the officers decided that the scheme would continue in its present form and after three months fresh bids would be invited from insurance companies for the scheme.
The scheme at present gives an annual health cover of Rs 50,000 per family and covers 1514 diseases. The United India Insurance Company, a public sector general insurance company, is handed over the task of providing health cover to 10,74,000 families of the State. The Harish Rawat Government was planning to increase the cover amount to Rs 1.75 lakh from April 1 this year.
The scheme was launched with much fanfare on Republic day last year and was implemented from April 1, 2015. All the residents of the State barring those giving income tax and serving and retired Government employees were put under the purview of the scheme which the State Government boasted as it premier social welfare scheme.
MSBY, however, was marred by many controversies like including non eligible people, issuance of health cards to dead persons, non-cooperation of paneled hospitals with the patients, non disbursal of money from the insurance company to the hospitals and inflated premium demanded by the insurer.
However, despite all these problems the former CM Rawat was keen to increase the health cover as he was of the view that the scheme would be a potent political weapon for the next assembly elections.