Premium Estimates for the 2008 State Health Care Benefit Program for the Poor

As a result of technical assistance provided by the CoReform project the Government of Georgia in 2007 introduced targeted (to poor) health care benefit program in two pilot regions (city of Tbilisi and Imereti region) of Georgia covering approximately 180,000 individuals below poverty line. This program is aimed at paying for health care insurance coverage that population obtains from private insurance companies on the market. During fall 2007, the GoG made decision and announced to public that it will gradually expand program coverage to approximately 1.2 million individuals over the course of several years. In order to estimate reasonable monthly premium costs for people living below the poverty line, children and the elderly, and allocate budgetary resources accordingly, the MoLHSA requested USAID for assistance, through CoReform, to estimate Monthly Premium for the State Insurance Program to inform the State budget allocations for 2008. It is estimated that during 2008 up to 800 000 poor individual will receive such benefits. The project has developed a plan for immediate assistance with the calculations required for the 2008 budget spending.Monthly Premium estimations done by CoReform/CIF hired actuaries in December 2007 have already informed 2008 State Budget allocations approved on December 28, 2007 and reflected in the Government of Georgia (GoG) Decree #92, dated April 08, 2008, namely: a) average premium 11 Gel per month per person that makes 132 Gel per person per annum informed Article 6 (3) of the Decree in question and b) different premium coefficients estimated for different age groups and these coefficients are reflected in the Article 6 (4) of the said Decree.