The Indian express (February 1)
“This is a revolutionary Budget. It has major, big-ticket announcements which will help India take a giant leap in our aspirations to establish a New India.” Perhaps the most ambitious is a measure to expand health insurance to half a billion people. “With this added health cover benefit, we can be truly proud of being a growing economy with concerns of the marginalized and the disadvantaged being well taken care of. In a way, this is a redistribution of wealth generated in favour of the poor and the impoverished.”
Tags: Benefit, Budget, Disadvantaged, Health insurance, Impoverished, India, Marginalized, Redistribution, Revolutionary, Wealth
Chicago Tribune (June 23)
“The rollout of Obamacare later this year is likely to bring a rate shock for many Americans who will buy health insurance from state marketplaces known as exchanges.” How much of a shock remains unknown as many implementation deadlines have been missed. Whether the rollout is a complete train wreck remains to be seen, but “this is not going to be a smooth ride.”
The Economist (September 6)
“The world’s most vibrant economies are shifting gear, away from simply building wealth towards building a welfare state.” Indonesia will become the world’s largest single-payer national health insurance program in 2014 when it provides universal health insurance. China has brought “pension coverage to an additional 240m rural folk, far more than the total number of people covered by Social Security, America’s public-pension system.” And in India pension coverage and a guaranteed work scheme have been extended. “The speed and scale of this shift are mind-boggling.”
Tags: China, Health insurance, India, Indonesia, Pension, Social security, U.S., Welfare state
