National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Sounds like really good idea.

National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis - Pakistan - DAWN.COM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on Thursday approved the National Health Insurance Scheme aimed at providing health care to some 100 million people in Pakistan.

The prime minister chaired a meeting to give in principle approval to launch the Health Insurance Program. The meeting was attended by Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar, Chairperson PM’s Youth Program Maryam Nawaz, Minister of State for Health Saira Afzal Tarrar, and senior officers of the health and finance ministries.

Maryam Nawaz, the architect of the scheme, gave a detailed briefing to the Prime Minister in which comparative study of major health blanket models of the European Union, United States and India and options for implementing the scheme in Pakistan were discussed.

“A health insurance programme is the only way forward to provide health care protection to economically deprived people of the society. The scheme is the first of its kind to introduce a grievance redressal system as well as social security safety net for the poor people of Pakistan," he said.

PM Sharif said the programme will not only give the vulnerable sections of the society an access to cash free health facilities but will also help to develop and revolutionise the health infrastructure across Pakistan.

The prime minister further said the scheme will also increase public-private partnership in Pakistan and will open up further avenues for investment.”

The scheme would be completely apolitical and would provide a blanket for cash free treatment to the poor people of Pakistan for major diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus and complications, burns and RTA (life and limb saving treatment, implants, prosthesis), end stage renal diseases and dialysis, chronic infections (hepatitis), organ failure (hepatic, renal, cardiopulmonary) and cancer treatment.

The meeting also decided to establish the first ever public sector human organ transplant center in Islamabad.

The prime minister directed the Ministries of Finance and Health to coordinate and finalise the technical modalities and implementation strategy in minimum possible time so that an early relief could be given to the people.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

How would this scheme work? As in western countries you have to pay a monthly fee for covering the health covers. If the government will subsidize these covers then expect increase in budget deficit, which will again be covered through loans or printing money. In short people will pay through inflation.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

I have serious doubts about the health insurance scheme .

-Health covers requires premium payments from the insured and it's not an unlimited cover.

-How will govt collect the premium ?

-For a conventional health insurance the hospitals need to be on a panel , how will a clinic or hospital running in a remote village of Pakistan will come on pane,

  • The health institutions will not give treatment for free unless an amount is kept as a deposit with them and to what extent this can be done ?

  • I feel sorry for the insurance company doing this because soon they'll be out

  • Health insurance covers require a proper management by a team of professionals including doctors and for entire Pakistan I don't know how they will manage

  • I see a huge debt coming like that of yellow cab scheme

Allah raham karey

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

Plus the guy working as a advisor to PM on this wasn't sure about it and this I am talking about 1.5 months back. He's a very smart guy and had very true apprehensions and doubts about the whole thing.

I wonder how this has been finalised and announced

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

kahnaa aasaan, karnaa mushkil...kah dene meN kia haraj hai...na karne par kaun unkaa garibaan pakRehaa? aise hii sabz baaGh dikhaayaa jaataa rahaa hai, dikhaayaa jaa rahaa hai aur aise hii mustaqbil meN bhii dikhaayaa jaataa rahegaa.

in sab ke liye paisoN kii zaroorat hotii hai. vo kahaN se aayegaa? Ali Syed ne saHeeH kahaa k agar aisaa mumkin huaa to vo mazeed qarzoN se hii mumkin ho sakegaa aur phir qarz kii la'nat Ghareeb ko Dasegaa! :(

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National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

So those who couldn't develop a proper effective tax system are now going to implement health insurance? I highly doubt it. Could be beneficial for the govt but not for a common man

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

I have some info regarding the scheme health cards will be issued after matching the poverty score from BISP program. The insurance will be under written by state life, premium will be directed pay by gov.

The good part is the insurance will be acceptable at private institutions too. Medicine will be dispense by any medical store part of online network - details will be out shortly.

to me it looks like directly modeled on EU health system. But one concern is it will become major part of federal budget in 5 years, where the money will come from?

if NS able to execute it well, my vote is for him in 2018 regardless of energy crises are resolve or not.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

The idea is in its infancy. Can we wait and see what final product looks like before shooting it down?

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

No one is shooting it down. Genuine questions should be appreciated though. Even western countries are facing problems and are discussing plans to remove these health benefits as they take a lot of proportion of their budgets. Here we are talking of financially stable countries, can Pakistan afford this? Anyways the government should try and implement it, we will discuss the repercussions later.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

difference b/w EU and us is literacy of population. Here the target market is illiterate and I don't know how they will understand and benefit from it. Not an easy task at all.

If I was the PM I would first used to the money to build hospitals and maternity homes because no matter how good the intentions are the health programme surely will fail without a proper infrastructure.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

recently, we have seen how they defrauded the system in connection with the BISP when it introduced direct deposit of monies to the recipient's account through mobile fones. if this health insurance ever comes into effect, it will be marred with corruption. our [Indian and Pakistani] politicians and our people are exceptionally good at it. it'll leave the door of corruption wide open.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

Are you saying illiterate people get sick differently than literate people? Btw, Pakistans biggest problem is uncontrolled population growth. According to the UN by 2050 Pakistan will have 300+ million people. What needs to be done is....what they are doing in Iran & that is birth control. I hope any comprehensive health care system include free contraceptives.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

In any system corruption is going to be there even in well developed western countries. Waste and fraud are common in the US with SNAP, and Medicare System. In fact, it is estimated that Medicare fraud is upward of 50+ billion dollars per year.

Medicare fraud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

It seems like a good step in the right direction. Lets see how it pans out before criticising it. Something like this is desperately needed in the country. If Nawaz can deliver this than it will be great for the country.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

I was under the impression that govt hospitals were already mandated to provide free healthcare to all. Is this an admission of the fact that we cant, or wont subsidize them further? Why cant this money be used to improve the quality of our public hospitals?

Before we copy and paste ideas from developed countries, we need to set up the basics first.

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

After Youth Loan scheme mariam Nawaz is again appointed as chair person of National Health Insurance scheme

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

Lol I think what I said is too deep for your brain to comprehend. dont wanna waste my time explaining

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

A health insurance scheme is much better than building hospitals. The government has very limited management skills. Their hospitals are ill managed and have a high cost per patient with a much inferior quality of treatment. If the government wants to spend money on healthcare.. it's better to subsidize directly the health care insurance than building hospitals. In this case governments's funds will not be spent on building infra structure which will be financed by private capital.

Same should be done with education. Government should not build the schools. They should just pay fees for the students. There is an "Educator" model already running in private sector. Their cost per child is about the same as government schools.. but quality is much higher. The schools are constructed and run by private sector. The same model can be applied to government education initiatives where the government should develop schools on "Educator" model and just subsidize the students direct, concentrate on quality and regulation..

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

I agree..
No country in the world has economically developed without controlling the population growth..

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Re: National Health Insurance Scheme to cover 100 million Pakistanis

Yes because your intellectualness is greater than everyone else in the world & we are lucky to have you considered us worthy of your time here.