The government's expenditure on Aasandha, the state-initiated health insurance scheme, has reached its highest level to date, doubling the budgeted amount.
Ministry of Finance shared the budget report for 2024, which highlighted a MVR 2.3 billion expenditure for Aasandha in 2023 which is an excess of MVR 1.3 billion from the budgeted amount.
Due to the significant increment of Aasandha expenditure, an additional MVR 1.2 billion was allocated in the supplementary budget, which was submitted to the parliament recently.
Despite austerity measures to cut Aasandha expenditure, the ministry said, it was not implemented accordingly since 2023 is the election year.
The ministry has allocated MVR 1.9 billion for Aasandha in the 2024 state budget with several measures to counter spending hikes. The ministry projects an annual expenditure of MVR 3.4 billion on the health insurance scheme if measures are not placed.
With a total of MVR 7.4 billion spent on Aasandha in the last five years, the expenditure peaked in the last year. Aasandha observed a 20 percent increment from the budgeted amount during the last five years.
The government has taken steps to control prices of prescription drugs or medicine to cut the health insurance expenditure. According to World Bank, medicine is available in the Maldives for prices 15 to 75 times higher than their actual prices globally. Expenditure to provide medicine through Aasandha covers 24 percent of the total scheme, with an average MVR 500 million spent annually for medicine.
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