Indian industries are looking at the upcoming Union Budget 2017-2018 with a keen sense of hope and confidence that the Government will aid all businesses to grow and thus augment the economic growth of the country. While the health insurance segment, in particular continues its double digit growth, more support from all parties is essential to ensure every Indian has health insurance coverage and access to quality healthcare services.
The Government is expected to launch a universal health insurance scheme this year, which should be an impetus for Indians to get immediate access to better healthcare benefits. As a part of the health insurance segment, we would wish to share our recommendations with the Government that they develop this Universal Health Insurance programme as a non-taxable service. This programme is expected to help raise the number of people with health insurance coverage exponentially and pull up our penetration levels, which is currently one of the lowest in the world at 5 percent. Such a tax free scheme would encourage those people who have not yet bought health insurance, to consider investing in the scheme to avail of quality healthcare for themselves and their families.
