KATHMANDU: Member of the House of Representatives (HoR) Dr Dila Sangraula has asked the government to make its stance public on health insurance scheme.
Taking part in the Appropriation Bill in the Sunday meeting of HoR, lawmaker Sangraula said there are almost 20 private health insurance companies in the country, but they are just eying for profits and escaping responsibility to bear the risk of poor people in case the latter are not able to pay the premium amount.
“We don’t have to introduce the model that advocates the idea of loss bearing from the state and profit from the private companies.”
She argued that almost 50 per cent of the total health care expenditure of Nepalis is spent from an individual basis.
“Thousands of households are pushed to poverty every year in the country for failing to bear the exorbitant health care cost. Health care cost in the private hospital is not in the access of general public and most of the government hospitals lack reliable and quality health care services,” she shared her views in the parliament.
Against this backdrop, lawmaker Sangraula took time to seek the government plans to supply skilled human resource, equipment and drugs in the to-be-built 655 basic hospitals that are being completed by the next fiscal year.
She has also termed the government announcement to provide Rs 5,000 in cash as nutrition cost to the new mothers in 25 districts that have poor Human Development Index (HDI) is a welcome step.
What is Health Insurance Board?
Health Insurance Board (HIB) is a social protection program of the Government of Nepal that aims to enable its citizens to access quality health care services without placing a financial burden on them. The households, communities and government are directly involved in this program.
Health Insurance program helps prevent people from falling into poverty due to health care costs i.e. catastrophic expenditure due to accidents or disease by combining prepayment and risk pooling with mutual support.
This program also advocates towards quality health services. This program attempts to address barriers in health service utilization and ensure equity and access of poor and disadvantaged groups as a means to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
