A US study has found that insured cancer patients live longer than the uninsured ones. Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as those with private coverage. The study found that people without health insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests and when these patients finally do get diagnosed, their cancer is likely to have spread. For all this, uninsured are believed to account for just a fraction of US cancer deaths. It is around 4%. The absolute figures are something like 20,000 of 560,000 annual cancer deaths are uninsured when they die. Hence, American Cancer Society is calling for action to fix holes in the health care safety net. No wonder, a major issue in the re-election of George Bush three years ago was revamping of the US healthcare system to bring in more people under insurance cover.

Compare this with our own healthcare system. Do we have anything worth the name? One only has to visit the district hospitals to see for oneself. There are any number of villages from where people can’t even think of reaching the district hospitals. And the long wait-list at All India Institute of Medical Sciences can only put you off further. Even the middle class cannot often afford the charges for major ailments at private hospitals. How about the lower middle class and those below poverty line? But then, when they can’t even feed themselves properly, do they have the right to even think about healthcare?

One wonders if health insurance is one way out. Maybe, like SEBI is doing its bit on educating the investor, IRDA has to educate the people about the benefits of health insurance. The Medical professionals themselves, the healthcare institutions and the Third Party Administrators in the insurance industry have all to be educated against possible temptation to misuse the system, so that the fledgling healthcare insurance sector in India is not obliterated in its infancy. If not administered scrupulously, the rates of premium will skyrocket and rising premium is a sure-shot prescription to shut the middle and the lower income groups out. The insurance companies will also have to be regulated effectively to ensure that they don’t treat a disease that was detected during an insured period as pre-existing for the purpose of calculating the premium while renewing the policy without a break. The insuring public will also have to be informed adequately about their own rights and obligations under the policy so that they don’t try to tempt the healthcare institutions to deviate from the norms, as that will only drive the premium northwards for all.