New Delhi: The parliamentary panel on health has recommended accelerating the expansion of standardised, low-cost health insurance products for the middle-income class, often excluded from publicly funded schemes and leaving them vulnerable to financial distress due to medical emergencies. The committee said the middle-income demographic requires “robust, accessible safety nets” and recommended expanding insurance products akin to Aarogya Sanjeevani, with simplified policy terms and wider demographic coverage. However, it said the benefits of government health insurance schemes need to be insulated from medical inflation and unchecked escalation in technological costs. The panel recommended eliminating room-rent-linked inflation models for standard procedures across private hospitals and creating a statutory framework to standardise treatment guidelines and cap arbitrary price variations. The report noted that out-of-pocket expenditure as a share of total health expenditure declined from 62.6 per cent in 2014 to 43.4 per cent in 2022-23, while per-capita government health expenditure increased from Rs 1,108 to Rs 2,786 during the period.