Scan Medical Insurance

Should health insurance business be banned?

In USA, health insurance companies are there since long. I don't know when this business started. In India, it has entered later. In my childhood, health insurance wasn't heard of. None in my family ever had health insurance. We always got cheap and good medical treatments from charitable hospitals. In Kolkata, we used to avail of services of "Gujarati Sahaykari Dawakhana" which was not only cheap but was also maintaining high standard of service. When my father expired, of the total donations made by me, 50% was given to this hospital. In USA, people cannot live without health insurance which becomes a major part of expenses. Insurance companies earn from both the patients as well as the medical practitioners who are worried of being sued. When I visited a doctor in USA for common cold accompanied with fever, I had to fill up a big form giving some declaration and past history in which I was asked if my father had the disease and if my grandfather had it. Ridiculous! Now, India is heading in the same direction. I wonder if we can go back to the good old days when there was no medical insurance and doctors used to be respected by the society like God and they too used to provide praiseworthy service. Insurance business is just an additional burden and is primarily responsible to make medical treatment costly. @ badgolfer You are right about comparision between India and USA, but reasons for that are other than lack of health insurance. I agree with you and other answerers that due to newer inventions, like CT Scan, MRI, etc., helathcare has become costly and unaffordable, but ways like governmet subsidy for these equipments can be thought of. As far as the form that I had to fill, common cold and fever due to it does not require genetic investigation. It was a form designed for all. The reason for it was more to safeguard the doctor from getting sued in case something goes wrong. And as far as medical treatment in India is concerned, you are totally incorrect about comparing Bangalore and US. That is just your mindset. My 3-year old granddaughter was treated in US for constipation for a week when finally it turned out to be UTI. So do not underestimate medical brain and facilities in India. and finally, I was not comparing USA and India, my question was related to health insurance. Most Indians settled in US also have that mindset of getting treatment in US. But the main reason is that they get insurance cover only in USA. For ailments like dental care, they get their treatment in India. That time their mindset changes. Mortality rate may be higher in India, but the incidence of infection is not necessarily so. Infections do not spare any country and has nothing to do with having health insurance. Compare statistics of India and USA for swine flu and HIV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate @ CP My father got the worst treatment at a leading Kolkata hospital where we spent lacs of rupees. I even shudder to recollect the instances of bad treatment there. Need few pages to narrate my experience. On the other hand, I got my prostate and hernia operation done at Kidney Hospital of Ahmedabad run by an autonomous trust where I got the best treatment. Total cost of both operations done at separte times, all inclusive, was Rs. 16000/-. I paid the highest charges there taking a special room which was well furnished, facility for two attendants to sleep overnight, fridge, TV, a small kitchen platform. The charge of the room for a dy was Rs. 1000/-. For inferior and smaller rooms, private hospitals charge Rs. 1000/-. Private hospitals even charge Rs. 1000/- for each daily visit of doctors who are just assisting the main doctor and are junior and this visit is routine whether you need or not and when the doctor is really needed, he is nowhere to be found. I also recollect another instance of No. 1 ranked Kolkata hospital where my maternal uncle has to undergo surgery in which a part of his leg was to be cut off due to gangerine and the team of doctors quarrelled and failed to agree on the date of operation. My cousin is a multi-multi-millionaire and was prepared to spend anything for his father, but he had to request the doctors with folded hands to do the operation as early as possible as with each day's delay, gangerine was spreading. My cousin was the receipant of one of the highest income-tax payers from the President of India. One gets better treatment at a proivate hospital in India is a myth rather than reality. Let me add one more case of my relative who was admitted in a leading private hospital on Peddar Road in Mumbai. He told me that he was not even served water when asked and he observed that the rich Arabs who were getting treatment there had the habit of giving a 100 rupee note every time they were attended. All that glitters is not gold. Correction: For inferior and smaller rooms private hospitals charge Rs. 3000/- onwards.

Public Comments

1. One cannot turn back the hands of time.
2. India is a Great country,it has got a rich past let us not spoil it by aping at the west for all the silly reasons.let us follow our own culture.
3. I dont think so India's problem is unique - population, illetracy and a curropt society whether we like it or not we shall have Doctor's charging patients heavily bcos good Doctors/hospitals are a shortage - Atleast with insurance mostly provided by group insurance policies people get their claim and hospital get their due and not all are bad. Yes these hospitals need to be kept under control by relevant authorities, With a medical insurance atleast us middle class who pay heavy taxes can get our family treated at decent places. If we visit Municipal/Govt hospitals in Mumbai where treatment is almost free and where the poor with no insurance flock we know the condition - relatives left to carry out the duties of paramedicos and risk of detah due to infection is high - if we ban insurance then all hospitals will be conveted to hositals like municipal hospitals which are just not acceptable places for treatment.adn in any case the rich will always have what they want Health insurance atleast support a large sections of population who can use earned money to buy insurance and treat their families
4. Mr. Madhukar, I am sorry to say that you are totally wrong in your estimate.if your daughter gets married tomorrow, you know how much to spend (according to your capacity), if you want to purchase one house, you know how much money, you want.but only thing you don't know is which decease will catch you tomorrow or what amount you need for your treatment.Again,just FDI is required for robust GDP,same way, infusion of money is required for world class medical treatment.A top doctor will ask huge money for any surgery than a mediocre or average Doctor Definitelyy welfare will not work here.Costly Doctors or costly equipments are ( I am very sorry to say) not for poor or average people.Medical insurance is the only hope for atleastt middle or high middle class people or else you have to visit Govt. hospital where there is lack of equipments (for want of money) or mediocar Doctors (for poor salary) with no infrastructure.I am resident of Calcutta and know the economics of this medical science of Calcutta.All the top Doctors of Calcutta are attached with private big hospitals equiped with latest state of the art equipments.
5. My point was that without health insurance offsetting the cost of these procedures, noone would be able to afford it. The gov't can barely run the Internal Revenue Service forget about health care. Also, some of the situations which you described in your response would never have ocurred in the US. Only in the rarest of cases would doctors not be willing to perform a surgery and only because the procedure doesn't have a chance or it's experimental. You are correct that doctors and other health care providers require tons of documentation in case of litigation. That's one of the downside. On the upside, I work in an OR with surgeons and I'm required by law to count every instrument, every sponge, every suture and every knife that goes near your body to make certain that nothing is accidentaly left in your body to avoid infection or worse like traveling to your heart or lungs. This is to protect you and if we didn't do our job we deserve a problem. Health insurance needs to stay around but needs stronger regulation and oversight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Have you ever compared the mortality and infection rate of India against the United States. I bet my bottom dollar that we have a vastly lower percentage. And why? The money that goes into Research and Development of health care diagnostic tools such as MRI's CT-Scans,PET, surgical techniques, life saving drugs, infrastructure advancements. The list is endless. Who will pay for this? This stuff doesn't come cheap. Health Care Insurance pays for the majority of this. Granted there are many aspects that aren't fair but I'd still rather have an emergency in the US than in Bangalore. As far as asking about your father and grandfather, genetic research has come a long way and they were trying to determine if you may have any potential issues due to heredity. As for the doctors being respected like g-d, I'm glad they have been take off their pedastels and been made accountable for their actions. Now, what do we do with lawyers?
6. You're absolutely correct that for-profit insurance is the problem, not the cure. I'm sorry to hear that crony-capitalist insurance companies are busy trying to inflict themselves on your country, but I'm not surprised. They've bilked $trillions from the US, why not branch out? You have my sympathy. To answer your question, yes it's possible to rid ourselves of insurance. The requirement is a massive education campaign. As you can see from the previous answers, many people mistakenly believe insurance is helpful. Some even believe it funds research (which is actually done in academia and at NIH). Maybe all of us who answer math and science questions should add the slogan "just say no to for-profit insurance" to our solutions ;-)