Panaji: Aam Aadmi Party’s Goa unit president Valmiki Naik has written to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant seeking an appointment to discuss extending a health insurance cover of Rs 10 lakh to every Goan family without any conditions.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Naik said healthcare was the right of every Goan and not a privilege.
He said the proposal was not politically motivated and claimed that the AAP was willing to share its experience of implementing a Rs 10 lakh health insurance model if the Goa government was interested in improving healthcare delivery.
Naik compared Goa’s Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana (DDSSY) with the health insurance scheme implemented by the AAP government, claiming that DDSSY covers only 447 medical procedures, while the AAP model provides coverage for around 2,350 procedures.
He alleged that the limited coverage under DDSSY forces patients to seek treatment in private hospitals at their own expense.
Naik also claimed that several private hospitals were reluctant to accept DDSSY beneficiaries due to delays in reimbursements and payments that were lower than the actual cost of treatment, resulting in patients bearing an additional financial burden.
The AAP leader further claimed that the number of active DDSSY cards had declined from nearly 2.95 lakh to around 1.81 lakh, indicating that fewer people were finding value in the scheme.
He said nearly 90 per cent of Goans depended on government healthcare facilities, but many public hospitals continued to face shortages of infrastructure, specialist doctors, and essential medical equipment.
Naik said Primary Health Centres, sub-district hospitals, and district hospitals required urgent upgrades to improve healthcare delivery in the state.
Seeking an appointment with the chief minister, Naik urged the state government to introduce a universal Rs 10 lakh health insurance scheme to ensure access to quality healthcare for every Goan family.
