Why Health Insurance Should Be Made Mandatory In India?

Time and again we have failed to realize the significance of health insurance even though it has been pointed out by critic’scountless time. The biggest challenge world over is that of improving the quality of healthcare and at least curb the soaring costs of treatment.

Today, the medical treatment cost is going anywhere but up and with the rising inflation, it only gets challenging to access healthcare facilities. This shall definitely add to the financial burden. More often than not it has been called for the Indian healthcare system must upgrade and adapt to the new order, but we struggle to define what actually the order should be. Currently only 4% of the total Indian population is under health insurance cover. So the prime reasons as to why health insurance should be made mandatory in India are discussed below:

1. The Increasing Below Poverty Line (BPL) Population: Due to the health issues, many people in India end up becoming a part of BPL Section. It has been reported in The National Health Policy that almost 63 million people face poverty due to major health problems in every year. When a health crisis of the most extraordinary kind hits them, they have nothing to fall back on except their entire savings due to the high healthcare costs. In contrast, the purchase of a health insurance plan is a much cheaper option. Providing health insurance mandatorily to the population belonging to the BPL category would help securing their future
   
   
   
2. Rising Cost of Healthcare in India: The healthcare cost is prohibitively costly. As a matter of fact, the cost of a particular treatment increases by 12% on an average and it is outrageously higher than the inflation rate which hovers around 7%. This snowballing of cost of the healthcare services has made healthcare services painfully inaccessible for significant amount of population. With this, the holdings of healthcare sector by private players in substantial part make the situation more critical.
   
   
   
3. High Number of Population Vulnerable to Critical Diseases: The sad state of healthcare in India has many factors and the vulnerable population is one of them. With more than a significant amount of population living in slums and not having access to basic health and sanitation facilities, they get exposed to critical illnesses which affect the heart, kidneys and liver. Such medical complications need immediate and specialized medications. An average and below average income household/group can never afford such treatment and medication. Hence the time is right to implement programs on mandatory health insurance so people get the timely medical attention they require.
   
   
   
4. Medical Coverage For Family: India desperately needs a medical insurance coverage which not just covers the individuals but their families as well. A family health insurance can be fruitful to the female members like a mother to a newborn or even the children in their teens. Moreover, family insurance is a umbrella policy that can help the government speed up the process of providing insurance cover to maximum possible families of our population.