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COVID-19, Health Insurance and Access to Healthcare
Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic with a robust healthcare system, and effective government intervention with appropriate regulation on private sector, is a more appropriate option than resorting to insurance to cover COVID-19 related care, or healthcare in general.
Health insurance business grows on projections of fear and the unknown. The risk from the unknown or unforeseen is the basic principle which “in utmost good faith” drives people to buy insurance cover to get protection from unknown afflictions in the future that may threaten their healthcare. This is the foundation of health insurance. Until last year COVID-19 was an unknown and yet people afflicted with it who had active insurance policies, and who have been hospitalised, have been denied claims or have received reduced claims. A report (Saraswathy 2021) says that as on 6 February 2021 as many as 8,70,000 COVID-19-related claims worth `13,100 crore were filed but the pay out as yet has been only `6,650 crore.
Health Insurance in India
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