Health Financing and Delivery in India: An Overview of Selected Schemes

By:
Kalpana Jain
Date:
  • Subtitle: WIEGO Working Paper (Social Protection) No. 29

This paper analyzes some of India’s most prominent heath insurance schemes from the perspective of poor informal women workers, a specific focus rising from the fact that women informal workers tend to have special needs and poorer health than their male counterparts.

Health Financing and Delivery in India

The scheme differ in their structure and financing: the RSBY scheme, which is run by the Central Government; the Vimo SEWA scheme, which is the community-based health insurance scheme of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) that is now active in nine states in India; the Yeshasvini scheme in Karnataka, which works in collaboration with farmer cooperatives; and the Rajiv Aarogyasri scheme in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

The analysis focuses on five key aspects of the schemes: inclusiveness and access for informal workers; the quality of services being provided; awareness of the scheme among its intended beneficiaries; the scheme’s impact on reducing out-of-pocket expenditure on health care; and the scheme’s ability to provide access to women.

The paper shows that a range of institutional innovations are possible in terms of bridging the health equity divide.

 

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