This refers to the report “All essential drugs may come under price control” (July 15). The move by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers to bring all essential medicines sold in the country under a price cap is laudable. In fact, this should have been done long time back. People requiring drugs for constant use like those for cancer, cardiac troubles and diabetes are finding it more and more difficult to meet the monthly medicine bill. The reason behind exorbitant prices of medicines, it is believed, is profit margins of around 50 per cent. All life-saving, regularly used medicines need to be brought under price control, which will ensure the high profit margin is slashed and drugs are reasonably priced.
Also, the issue of withdrawal of cashless treatment facility under mediclaim policies by insurance companies needs to be resolved. The insurance companies have argued that charges demanded by hospitals are exorbitantly high and they try to exhaust the upper cap admissible under mediclaim policies. It is a fact that private hospitals have the liberty to fix charges for services provided by them, which vary from hospital to hospital. Therefore, patients have no way but to pay whatever charges hospitals demand.
With an insufficient number of government hospitals available to serve the country’s large population, the government should, at least, make treatment in private hospitals affordable for the common man by fixing reasonable rates for various treatments by private hospitals, and making it mandatory that hospitals will not charge more than the prescribed rate. The rest will follow.
M C Joshi, Lucknow
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