Micro Health Insurance: Health Care for India's Poor
Alex Steffen, 2 May 05
Here's an interesting idea-in-development: creating micro health insurance for India's poor:
Like you, we are aware of the huge need to ... look for solutions to encourage health insurance for the poor, in pursuit of breaking the vicious cycle of poverty -> ill health -> poverty.
Getting the world's poorest people access to the kinds of financial tools, insurance and hedges against disaster which most of us in the developed world take for granted is a big, powerful idea. If it can be done right, it may well be one of the keys to ending poverty as we know it.
it's important to understand that the microinsurance idea (and, in particular, the microhealthinsurance idea) is not a mere extension of the microfinance/-credit concept. microinsurance's first objective is not to provide capital or resources with which the benefactors (i.e. the ones who take a loan) can work productively. instead, microinsurance aims at stabilising or even creating conditions in which credit-lending and self-responsible economic activity can take place. thus, microinsurance is a far more fundamental tool to stabilise social security and eradicate poverty than microcredit.
Posted by: Thomas on 7 May 05
