Health insurance is the type of agreement between the person and government / company. It is the provision of health care payments by the company. Person has to pay premium every month or per annum to continue this insurance and all the expenses related to health i.e. medical bills, surgical process bills, routine checkup bills related to pregnancy, accidents, critical illness bills, are paid by them. We have 3 subjects in every insurance policy i.e. Insured-the one who is provided with the insurance or is under the coverage , Insurer– who is giving the insurance policy and Provider– means the doctor, hospital , clinic or health facility to which the insured is affiliated. Sum assured is the maximum amount a person can demand from the state and Premium is the annual or monthly fee taken from the insured to activate his policy.
Agreements vary according to the premium payments and the government like in Pakistan it’s different and in other countries it’s different. In some countries universal health insurance packages are not formed so in that case the employees are given health insurance services in their salary packages. People with lower salaries and no jobs have no health insurance coverage. According to the type of insurance the treatment of patients varies.
Sometimes the policies vary in a way that they ask the person to repay all the bills within the time limit given in agreement and other types of insurances are cashless. Certain companies provide insurance policy in their salary packages to the employees which remain active until the person is employed to that company. Before starting any insurance coverage the person will have to pay deductible, it means he will pay some amount to the insurer to start his monthly insurance coverage then premium is another thing to be paid annually. Person has to pay the premium annually for the insurance coverage of the year and in some cases monthly premium is set. Person has to renew his insurance each year.
What are the different types of health insurance plans? 
There are two types of health insurances i.e; Public/government health insurance and private health insurance. Public health insurance is given by government includes insurance provision with or without premium. In Pakistan, Sehat Sahulat Program is present while in foreign nations there is medicaid, medicare and affordable care act(ACA) are present.
-
Health Insurance in Pakistan:
In Pakistan, without any financial return, the identified citizens of the nation can get access to their medical checkups, surgeries and treatment by sehat sahulat program. Good quality medical services are provided to poor people even in private hospital without any financial repay. Citizen should meet a certain criteria for the eligibility which includes family size and income relations. Pakistan only has this programme in government sector. Others are private states.
-
Health insurance in Fopreign:
In foreign nations medicaid is the programme which provides medical health facilities of all types to low income families and poor people and make private hospital treatment available for them according to the eligibility criteria. Medicare is the type for older people and disabled ones. People who are around 50-60 years of age will get benefit from this programme and the ones who are handicapped and mentally unstable require regular treatment are eligible for this programme. Affordable care act has the same purpose as the above ones it is also called as Obamacare.
-
Private Insurance:
Other type is private insurance which includes fee-for-service types where person pays 20% of the bill while 80% is given by insurer, managed care plans and preffered provider organization plans where he will get treatment in the preffered hospital and doctor. According to the eligibility and affordability people get insurance on premiums. In Pakistan jublee insurance, EFU life and adamjee insurance programs are present. Out of these jublee insurance is commonly used. We will have to pay annual fee (premium) to the state so that they will pay our medical Bills of all types.
Same goes to private companies in foreign regions who provide facilities on the basis of premium types selected by eligible individuals. In some countries insurance is so important that the one without coverage can get fined. The type of insurance describes how well the person will get his treatment. Although the public policies are good and provide healthy treatment to the patient but private policies are provided to provide more managed and hyped treatments to the patient with good amount of premium being taken from the insured.
Importance of Health Insurance
Insurance coverage is important for citizens to live healthy and happy lives with less worries. Health insurance provides hospital care services, hospital admissions without any payments, emergency services, provisions of expensive drugs to the patients who can’t afford their daily use, emergency C-section, vaccination of children, paediatric hospitalizations and treatments, routine checkups and dental care services which are more common and etc. Anyone who is thrown out of the house but has a settelsd insurance coverage, then it’s easy for him to get treated for any log term disease and emergency breakout.
A person who is loosing in financial status gets worried about his family’s health care and provisions specially when he has older parents and younger kids. But if he has any sort of insurance he can take it easy because it will be enough for the treatments and care of his family’s health. According to researches, People with health insurance were more likely to get their screening and examinations done as compared to the ones without health insurance.
Facilities provided by Health Insurance Company
This research shows that it is the beneficial way to take care of oneself even at expensive levels. In Pakistan many states and companies are providing health insurances with various types of premiums and any person can get his insurance done at most accommodating price as per his budget. Now a days, inflation even in medical facilities have made lives and treatments more difficult for people. These insurances can help such people as per requirements.
One of the major importance of it is in the treatment of cancer. Because of poor economic values and social status people are more likely to die even though they had a chance to get treatment but no money. If a person has any sort of insurance he can get treated and survive. It is considered as in of the most important success for insurance policies. Some people have chronic diseases which require regular checkups and examinations so if they can’t meet the expenses they would rather drop the clinic visits and treatment but with insurance a person can regularly get treated.
Other facilities of insurance than health care is that taxes on a person are decreased or compensated with premiums being paid by him. And person doesn’t have to worry about the raise in premium amount because it’s fixed according to laws and policies. Other importance is that sometimes Sum assured cost can be raised, high amount of bills are paid without any financial loss of the insured.
Should everyone have health insurance?
Many people around the world are unaware of health insurance policies and importance.
In Pakistan, many people think that these policies are fraud and usually are unaware of such thing. Although sehat sahulat program is providing 154 million people in Pakistan with free health facilities. Education and awareness regarding the insurance policies is the need of an hour to save people from haphazard conditions. Our health is the fundamental right and balance to worldly life. A healthy person is able to do everything and face hurdles.
PLEASE ALSO READ OBOUT IMPORTANCE OF INSURANCE