The State government’s health insurance scheme for its employees has hit a roadblock with the two sides standing poles apart on the modalities to be followed for the issue of health cards.
The employees are not even in a mood to resume talks with the government. Initially, the State government had completed talks with them in December last but later changed plans and decided to put a cap of `2 lakh on the insurance cover offered.
The cards were supposed to be issued in January and later, the date was postponed to Uagadi. As the talks were in a deadlock, no date has yet been announced for the scheme for now.
Besides the cap, the employees are also opposed to the government proposal that they visit only government hospitals for out-patient treatment. Principal secretary (health) Ratna Kishore, who held talks with TNGOs and AP NGOs recently, had putforward the government’s twin proposals of cap on medical expenditure and out-patient treatment during the meeting.
The employees had reminded him that when talks were held with Chief Secretary Minnie Mathew, the government had agreed to bear the entire medical expenditure of the employees without an upper limit. But the talks remained inconclusive with both sides sticking to their stand.
“There is no use of this type of talks. The talks are not result-oriented. We will not go for further talks in future,” APNGOs general secretary P Ashok Babu told Express. He said that putting a ceiling on medical expenditure was meaningless.
The government planned to give health insurance cards to 10 lakh employees and another 4 lakh pensioners from Ugadi.