New cashless med cover for govt staff

New cashless med cover for govt staff

BV.Shivashankar@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru:22.07.2021 

After the 11 per cent hike in dearness allowance (DA), the state government plans to provide a new cashless insurance scheme with broader coverage to its employees. The Karnataka State Government Employees’ Association said that the proposal for the new scheme, Arogya Siri, was in the advanced stage and might be approved during a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

The health cover will benefit 24 lakh people, including the dependents of staffers. “The government has told us that the departments of law and finance have cleared the proposal. We expect that the scheme will be implemented shortly after the cabinet clears it on Thursday,” said the association’s secretary, JG Patil.

There are about 6 lakh government employees, 4.5 lakh pensioners and 3 lakh workers of boards and corporations. Arogya Siri will cover all severe and minor diseases, unlike the current Jyothi Sanjeevini scheme that includes only tertiary treatment and emergency care for broad specialities such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, renal diseases, neurological conditions, burns, polytrauma cases and neonatal cases.

“Currently, if employees or their family members have any condition apart from these, they have to pay from their pocket and claim reimbursement later under Jyothi Sanjeevini. At most, they get back 50 per cent of what they spend. There is no such burden in the new scheme, which makes the treatment of all diseases cashless without any financial cap. We welcome it,” said the association’s president, CS Shadakshari.

The present scheme allows employees and their dependents to seek treatment at around 500 empanelled hospitals.

The new one permits them to get treatment in any hospital, be it government or private.

According to a senior official in the finance department, the burden on the exchequer is estimated to increase by at least four times, and the government is getting quotations from various hospitals to work out the costs.

Employees, meanwhile, have urged the government to switch back to the old pension model from the National Pension Scheme (NSP). Association members say that NPS is not beneficial as it also requires employees to contribute a portion of the basic salary towards the pension fund. In the old scheme, only the employer was required to contribute.

“The government invests the pension fund in the share market and the amount a retired employee gets is marketlinked. There is a risk in this. There have been instances in which an employee entitled to get Rs 30,000 received only Rs 3,000. Also, the NPS does not have the provision for inclusion of the revised dearness allowance,” Patil said.

24 lakh  People scheme will benefit