Medical Insurance for All

Medical Insurance for All?
Thomas Mathew PROPOSING a scheme that provides financial protection for the medical care of the poor, T N Krishnan (Hospitalisation Insurance; EPW, April 13, 1996) has put forward a hospitalisation insurance plan which is also expected to act indirectly as an income protection plan for the poor since it prevents the erosion of their already low incomes. While any plan that meets any of these two objectives should be welcomed, a scheme that supposedly fulfils both these objectives simultaneously is indeed laudable. But how far the outlined scheme is capable of realising the envisioned objectives has to be examined.