MICROHEALTH INSURANCE

Of all the insurance that could benefit low income families for uplifting their health status and life itself, health insurance is the most obviously beneficial program. For low income women’s, the decision to seek healthcare is often primarily guided by financial considerations. Thus, there is a tendency to delay seeking proper medical attention in the hope that things will get better by themselves. Next is a tendency to seek cure through a progression of low, but increasing, cost options. These options include self-medication with whatever is readily available from within the household. When that is ineffective low income people turn over to the local shops or drug stores that do not necessitate expenditure on transport and heavy cost on diagnosis.In case of outreach center’s communities of DCP which has low-income the disease burden is mostly dominated by communicable infections followed by non-communicable infections. These include respiratory infections, gastro-intestinal infections, sexually transmitted infections, skin diseases, accidents and sometimes HIV/AIDS with its associated opportunistic infections. So, particularly in children’s and women with marginal nutritional status, if there is presence of these infections and not treated on time then the condition would get worse rather than better without appropriate treatment. Consequently, inappropriate or inadequate initial treatment often leads to disease progression and general deterioration. This inevitably results in requiring more aggressive and more expensive medical treatment. 

Given the above background, affordable access to quality healthcare services through a prepaid financing mechanism is extremely desirable. So, through health micro insurance people could be helped to pay for quality health care by optimally pooling their own limited resources. As a general rule health micro insurance schemes deal with groups rather than individuals. This is in order to control against adverse selection, and provide an efficient mechanism of premium collection and scheme handling. So, typically schemes covers members of a group who are already involved in microfinance program and worked within the program for at least two years were selected for the program. Micro insurance schemes also have clear definitions of member included, for e.g. those women having dependent children were covered. The micro-health insurance scheme of DCP provides various levels of coverage to meet the needs of the MF women that follows (i) out-patient services; (ii) hospitalization; (iii) pharmacy service; (iv) laboratory facilities; and (v) safe motherhood.