Currently, the scheme is applicable to people who are living below poverty line
The government of India has planned to extend its health insurance scheme, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), for the people above poverty line (APL) – reported SiliconIndia.
Currently, the scheme is meant for people who are living below poverty line (BPL).
As per a government official, the Indian state of Kerala and Haryana are already in the process of extending health insurance benefits under this scheme to APL families. The government is planning to extend the benefits of the cover to workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, reported Financial Chronicle.
A BPL family presently falls under the category where there is a combined earning of INR36,000 per annum. However, no upper-earning cap has been set for the target beneficiaries once the scheme is extended to the APL families.
The source claims that the extension of the scheme to more beneficiaries would come as a good business proposition for health insurers with the government allocating INR3.5 billion to this scheme in the budget for the present financial year, against INR1 billion in 2008-09.
Apart from the four public sector general insurers, five private players, Royal Sundaram, ICICI Lombard, Apollo DKV, Star Health Insurance and Cholamandalam General Insurance are working with the government to provide health insurance cover under this scheme, quoted siliconindia.com.