Some Aspects of Health Insurance Schemes in Bangladesh

Health insurance is a financial mechanism for spreading the costs of medical care over as large a proportion of the group at risk as possible. The paper is based on secondary data. This paper has attempted to highlight several health insurance schemes - hospitalization plan, comprehensive major medical policy, dread disease policy, overseas medi-claim policy, GK and Grameen health insurance schemes, prevailing in Bangladesh. Delta Life Insurance Company is the pioneer in providing health insurance scheme. It introduced DELTA CARE hospitalization plan in 1994. It is a group insurance plan and is suitable for organizations who want to insure their employee members aged between 18 to 60 years. ALICO the only multinational life insurer in Bangladesh introduced a group plan in October, 1998 for 100 percent reimbursement of any kind of hospitalization expenses caused by sickness or accident. Under the Dread Diseases Policy introduced by JBC, any person between the age 30 to 57 years can purchase a policy against the specified diseases such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, kidney failure and so on. The objective of Overseas Medi-Claim Policy is to provide emergency medical treatment taken abroad while on a business/ pleasure/ study/ social visit. The GK health care system in Savar was initiated in 1971 and it currently covers about 1,66,000 inhabitants in Dhaka district. The study also indicated the problems of health insurance due to fraudulent attempts by a section of dishonest insured.