Health insurance and AIDS in India

August 25, 2001

The Hindu 25 August 2001, New Delhi - K. Nitya Kalyani.

Adding expenses

In India no insurance coverage is available for costs related to treatment of

AIDS or conditions related to AIDS. Mediclaim-which is virtually the only health

policy widely available yet-makes a specific exclusion of the disease. Not only

would hospitalisation costs for treatment of AIDS not be paid for, but if an

insured were to suffer from pneumonia due to AIDS, those costs would not be

covered either.

This question has been before the insurance industry worldwide since the 1980s

when the disease became widespread and alarming in its presence and baffling in

the costs related to its untreatability. The industry abroad has gone from

refusing cover to cautiously covering-or having to cover-AIDS and related

treatment.

For long companies had a lower cap on healthcare costs (sometimes only 25 per

cent or even 10 per cent of the limits it would otherwise have offered) for

those with HIV/AIDS and dropped coverage of expensive medications. Even US

courts upheld their discretion to do so.

The insurers' reasoning, AIDS care is expensive. Lawsuits screaming

discrimination followed and in the early 1990s the issue became hot and various

US states passed laws to prohibit this practice. So, it was only recently that

insurance companies have lifted these restrictions on cover for AIDS cover. In

India the situation remains unchanged. No coverage. Not only are hospitalisation

costs related to AIDS and due to AIDS excluded, but the same goes for sexually

transmitted diseases too! If costs are the politically correct reason for the

former, the latter and older exclusion actually takes on the colour of moral

policing. The unofficial 'official' reason? STDs are due to risky lifestyles

consciously adopted by the insured and hence not accidental and hence cannot be

covered.

________________________________

Dr. Jagdish Harsh

Assistant Director

François-Xavier Bagnoud (INDIA)

161, Satya Niketan, Moti Bagh-II

New Delhi-110021, INDIA

Phone: +91.11.611 1793-94; Fax: +91.11.410 7381

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