Now Reading: Karnataka Cabinet clears Sandhya Kiran health scheme for pensioners
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Karnataka Cabinet clears Sandhya Kiran health scheme for pensioners
The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday approved the Sandhya Kiran cashless healthcare scheme for state pensioners below 70, family pensioners, and dependents. The scheme will initially cover around 4.93 lakh beneficiaries, including 3.11…
The Story in Brief
The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday approved the Sandhya Kiran cashless healthcare scheme for state pensioners below 70, family pensioners, and dependents. The scheme will initially cover around 4.93 lakh beneficiaries, including 3.11 lakh government pensioners. It offers annual cashless treatment up to Rs 5 lakh at empanelled hospitals under the Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka framework.
Service pensioners will contribute 1.25 per cent of their basic pension and family pensioners 0.75 per cent. The government estimates annual contributions of Rs 117 crore against treatment costs of Rs 81.75 crore. The state will meet 30 per cent of costs; the rest from contributions. If corpus use exceeds 85 per cent, contribution rates will automatically rise by 0.05 percentage points. The Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust will run the scheme.
The Indian Opinion
The scheme borrows from Ayushman Bharat but adds a pensioner contribution. That 1.25 per cent deduction from basic pension will pinch, especially when the government itself is a co-payer. Watch if the auto-escalation clause, a 0.05 point hike when utilisation crosses 85 per cent, actually protects the corpus or merely pushes costs onto retirees. The real test: how many empanelled hospitals accept these rates?
Source: telanganatoday.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
