1
Health insurance is increasingly viewed as an important financing tool for improving the access to health care services for the poor. Lack of financial protection against health and large scale out of pocket expenditure resulted in poverty and ill health. Recently it its well understood that instead of spending on poverty eradication it is better to increase spending on health care. Therefore, it is necessary to impart health security to low income groups through alternative financing mechanisms like health insurance. Community health insurance has emerged as a possible means of improving access to health care. Health insurance in India can be categorized as mandatory, voluntary, employer based and NGO based insurance schemes. Central government sponsored health insurance scheme, Employees State Insurance Scheme (ESI), Social Health Insurance (SHI) are government backed health insurance schemes, includes a variety of health insurance forms.
