Health insurance for below poverty line families in the offing

Come 2006, people living below the poverty line in India will be covered under a national health insurance scheme. The Government of India is drafting a new pharmaceutical policy that is likely to be out in January.

The important plank of this policy is the introduction of a health insurance scheme that will enable accessibility of medicines to 26 per cent of the Indian population.

Simultaneously, maximum retail prices (MRP) of drugs are likely to be inclusive of local taxes, thus ensuring a uniform retail price for drugs and that consumers will not get cheated by retailers.

According to Satwant Reddy, secretary, department of chemicals and petrochemicals, Government of India, the policy also proposes to lay down a special access programme for anti-cancer and anti-HIV/AIDS drugs.

"This will be a public-private partnership programme that will help in reducing the cost of these drugs," she added. Reddy was speaking on the sidelines of the two-day India-Africa, Asean and GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) Pharma & Health Conference organised in Hyderabad by Ficci and Pharmexcil.

"We are also proposing to provide interest subsidy for implementation of Schedule M of good manufacturing practices (GMP)," Reddy said. GMP norms lay down the basic rules for pharmaceutical manufacturers to achieve a zero-defect product of WHO-defined standards.

The government is also contemplating reviving the public sector pharmaceutical companies so as to ensure adequate availability of essential medicines at affordable prices.

"There are PSUs like the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL) that come under this category," she said. IDPL was declared a sick unit in 1992.

With regard to price-control mechanism for essential drugs, she said that 354 drugs had been listed for this purpose, of which 40 being supplied to hospitals were eliminated.

"We are contemplating bringing the remaining 314 drugs under the price control mechanism. The prices are likely to be determined on the basis of weighted average price mechanism," she added.