A new health insurance scheme for providing free medical and surgical treatment to 1.34 crore families in Tamil Nadu was today launched by the Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, at an annual outlay of Rs 750 crore.

Under the “Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme”, replacing the previous DMK regime's insurance cover, a family would get a health insurance cover up to Rs 1 lakh a year for four years, an official release said.

In the case of certain diseases, the insurance cover could go up to Rs 1.50 lakh. The scheme, to be implemented by public sector United India Insurance Company, would be applicable to every member of a family whose annual family income is less than Rs 72,000.

Ms Jayalalithaa handed over ID cards for the scheme to seven beneficiaries and approval letters for treatment to seven others on the occasion.

After coming to power in May, Ms Jayalalithaa had scrapped the “Chief Minister Kalaingar's Insurance Scheme” named after the DMK President, Mr M. Karunanidhi, as part of reversing DMK regime's pet projects.

Observing that the DMK Government's scheme did not benefit everyone, the release said under the earlier initiative a family was given only Rs 1 lakh total cover for a block of four years.

Furthermore, the insurance amount of Rs 1 lakh in the earlier scheme was not sufficient for treatment of life-saving and major surgeries and no provision was made for post-operative treatment, forcing the poor to borrow money for their medical treatment, the release said.

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