An Evaluative Study of Rajiv Aarogyasri Health Insurance Scheme in Vizianagaram District of Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

Governments all over the world today have come to accept the health of people as a public responsibility. Health is a very significant and vital factor for the prosperity of a country. Health is one of the most important indicators for socio-economic development. After independence, in India, health has been given a constitutional recognition as a major factor for the national development. Article 47 of the Directive Principles of Indian Constitution points out that the basic responsibility of the state as the promotion of health and standard of living of its people. It also, further says, ‘the state shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and improvement of public health as among the primary duties and in particular, the state shall endeavor to introduce prohibition of the consumption, except for medical purposes of intoxicating drinks or drugs which are injurious to health’. While visiting a hospital in India, one often contemplates the sheer impossibility of delivering quality health care services to the economically downtrodden. It is commonplace for poor Indians to use their life savings to access quality treatment for themselves and their loved ones. To address this problem of indebtedness of the poor due to overwhelming health costs, the Government of Andhra Pradesh launched the Rajiv Aarogyasri Health Insurance Scheme on 01-04-2007 in three backward districts of Mahaboobnagar, Anantapur and Srikakulam on pilot basis was subsequently extended to the entire state in phased manner to cover 2.3 core Below Poverty Line families in 23 districts from 17-07-2008. Thus from the past Nine years Rajiv Aarogyasri Scheme working in the state and provides health insurance to Below Poverty Line, it is the right time to evaluate the scheme and to offer suggestions to improve its performance.