After losing a family member, how would you feel if you were handed a bill worth lakhs along with his dead body? The thought of this makes my soul tremble. But do you know how much profit private hospitals and insurance companies were making when you were looking for beds in hospitals and lined up for oxygen cylinders.
According to IRDAI, the largest body controlling insurance companies in the country, hospitals have charged three times more health claim money from insurance companies during the pandemic. At the same time, the earnings of health insurance companies have also increased tremendously during this disaster. We are telling here that how private hospitals and insurance companies have looted us in the name of Corona?
When Corona created an outcry in the second wave, the government health system across the country came to its knees. In such a situation, people reached private hospitals to save their lives. But, there he had to pay the cost of his life by paying a hefty bill. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI) report has revealed that hospitals have charged 3 times more money from insurance companies than before.
During the Corona period, insurance companies have paid hospitals at the rate of one lakh on an average per patient. Whereas in 2018, insurance companies paid hospitals at the rate of Rs 39,000 on an average per patient. Mayur Trivedi, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi, says that this report has been prepared on the basis of pre-epidemic and post-epidemic data. This data has been worked out on the basis of total number of claims and total amount of claim.
On the one hand, the number of health policy takers was increasing during the corona epidemic. On the other hand, health insurance companies were reluctant to pay the claim money to the patients. In August 2020, when an insurance company refused to pay the claim money to the patient, the matter reached the Supreme Court.
After hearing in this case, Chief Justice of Supreme Court SA Bobde said, 'During the pandemic, the insurance company cannot deny the claim money to the sick patients.'
NITI Aayog has released a report titled 'Health Insurance for India's Missing Middle' in October 2021. The report said that 70% of the country's population is under some form of health insurance. These include state government schemes, social insurance schemes and insurance policies of private companies.
Apart from this, 30% i.e. around 40 crore people living in the country are deprived of insurance. These people have been called 'missing middle' in the report. The 'missing middle' group consists mostly of poor people. They are dependent on government hospitals and health systems. For this reason, due to lack of treatment during the second wave, most of the deaths occurred due to these people.
IRDAI has released the annual report for 2020-21. According to this, a total of 11.01 lakh claims companies had received personal life insurance cases. Out of this, life insurance companies paid 10.84 lakh claims, totaling Rs 26,422 crore.