The Hindu Business Line : Centre plans to popularise illness assistance fund

AFTER the assurance on rural employment, the Centre is set to take up its promise on making healthcare more accessible by popularising the National Illness Assistance Fund (NIAF).

State Governments dip into the fund to reimburse the medical cost of people living below the poverty line. And if the task force on affordable medicines has its way, the NIAF is set to get an infusion of more funds.

In fact, the proposal to scale up the fund is one of the less contentious recommendations made by the task force in its recent report.

Representatives of the Union Health and the Chemicals and Fertilisers Ministries are likely to meet soon to take the proposal further.

Somehow, the fund has not been popular, though it was introduced in the Union Budget 1996-97, a representative on the task force told Business Line.

The initial corpus was about Rs 25 crore but now it has dwindled to about Rs 4 crore, the official added.

State fund: The idea was for the Centre and State to put in equal amounts of money to support families living below poverty line. But since that is not happening, the proposal now is to ask States to compulsorily constitute State Illness Funds, besides setting up revolving funds at public hospitals to help provide free medicines to such families.

The States have also been asked to issue permanent health cards, as is practised in Rajasthan, so that people in need of medicine do not have to go through the same procedures every time, the official said.

No suggestions have been made on how much the fund would have to be scaled up, but the proposal would require similar enthusiasm from both the Health and Finance Ministries to make a difference on the ground.

Some States where the fund is operational in a limited way reimburse families up to Rs 1.5 lakh for medical costs, the official said.

Affordable medicines: The task force, set up on the behest of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to look into affordability and access issues related to medicines, is however unlikely to get much support on some of the drug pricing-related recommendations made in its report.

The decision to sell select medicines without brand names is also going to be discussed by the Union Health and the Chemicals & Fertiliser ministries.

De-branding has been suggested on some medicines with market share of more than 70 per cent and sold for a long period of time, the official said.

However, the Health Ministry will have to concur and the proposal will have to be introduced through an amendment in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, the official added.

To deal with the problem of spurious medicines while popularising generic medicines without brand names, the think-tank is also pushing for a quality certification on the lines of the ISI mark.

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