Provision to deposit one percent of federal hospital’s income in health insurance fund

Kathmandu: Minister for Health and Population Pradip Paudel has made a decision to have one percent income of the Federal Hospital Development Committee deposited in the Health Insurance Fund.

Through a ministerial decision today, he made a decision to also get the Health Insurance Fund activated and have the insurance amount deposited through the Fund itself. The Fund was not active so far despite the provision for the same in the Health Insurance Act.

It is said this decision has paved the way for the Health Insurance Board for receiving extra resources, as the Ministry of Finance has already given its approval to this.

So far, the fund received through the Ministry of Health and Population had become the source of income of the Fund as it was not active.

Minister Paudel expressed the belief that the effectiveness of the health insurance programme could be increased only by strengthening the Health Insurance Fund. He said that the government would carry out further reforms based on the report of the health insurance reform suggestion taskforce in the coming days.

The report of the Insurance Reform Suggestion Task Force, which was made public some time ago, has suggested that one percent of the salary of the employees drawing salary from the state coffers should be contributed to the Fund by the employees themselves while the remaining one percent should be borne by the state.

Spokesperson at the Ministry, Dr Prakash Budhathoki, said that the current decision is expected to contribute to strengthening the Health Insurance Fund.