Both public and private healthcare facilities are available in India. Public healthcare provides benefits to central and state government employees. However, for the general public, government owns and operates hospitals in every region of the nation. These government hospitals offer free-of-cost primary medical service to all the nationals. Advanced medical treatment is also available at cheap rates.
As per 2007 data, state-owned insurance companies offer purchased health cover to almost 205 million people. Of late, private healthcare has emerged in a big way since the arrival of multinational companies. Most private insurance companies are conglomerations of international insurance leaders with Indian bigwigs. Indian medical services are provided under the banner of Mediclaim. This program is particularly popular in urban cities, where medical expenses are too high for most people. Indian medical insurance includes primary healthcare, hospitalization expenses, dental treatment, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and advance treatment, including surgery.
There are three different types of Indian medical insurance policies popular in the market:
Individual health insurance: This policy caters to the individual healthcare needs of each policyholder. The cover can vary as per the medical services one opts to bring under the policy. This policy can be fairly expensive but offers excellent cover and healthcare facilities.
Family health insurance: Instead of buying different Indian medical insurance policies for every member of the family, one can opt for combined family health insurance. This type of policy offers good cash value as the coverage gets multiplied to all the members while one has to pay a single premium.
Group health insurance: Most Indians are covered under a group health insurance policy by the employers. It is the cheapest Indian health insurance policy, with a wide range of cover.
There is an urgent need to sensitize people in favor of the benefits of Indian medical insurance. The government offers tax benefits against premium paid towards a private healthcare policy. However, more efforts are needed to make healthcare benefits available to a larger fraction of the population.