Awareness of Health Insurance in a south Indian Population

Health and Population: Perspectives and Issues, Vol 30(3), Pg 177 -188. A total number of 242 respondents from 242 households (male 38.4%; female 61.6%) were interviewed by using a pretested pro-forma after obtaining informed consent from the participants. The awareness of health insurance was found to be 64.0 per cent. Around 45.0 per cent of the respondents came to know about health insurance from the media which played an important role in the dissemination of information. The middle and low socio-economic groups favoured government health insurance compared to private health insurance. The findings indicate that government should come out with a policy, where the public can be made to contribute to a health insurance scheme to ensure unnecessary out-of-pocket expenditures and also better utilisation of health care facilities.