Activists organize to demand universal health care

Health care activists from the Private Health Insurance Must Go! Coalition, in collaboration with Healthcare-NOW!, Physicians for a National Health Program (N.Y. Metro chapter) and Single Payer New York, gathered at St. Luke’s Hospital on April 24 to discuss moving forward in the fight for universal health care in the U.S.

Conference organizer and PHIMG Chair Ajamu Sankofa opened up the third annual teach-in and summit, asserting that “health care activists must develop an effective narrative showing that the current law cannot and will not work.” He raised the need to assess the current period, recognizing the pernicious impact of neoliberalism and privatization on society and the need to end the movement’s deferential treatment of the Democratic Party. “We need a movement like the civil rights movement,” he said, “to show that Medicare for all is not only fiscally responsible, but a moral imperative that saves lives and prevents pain and suffering.”

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Corporate Governance for Insurers

At the end of 2009 the Indian insurance market regulator, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), issued its Corporate Governance Guidelines for Insurers. This is a lengthy and comprehensive document containing a combination of specific measures and general guidelines to be adopted and implemented by Indian insurers by April 1 2010. The guidelines are supplemental to the requirements of the Companies Act 1956, the Insurance Act 1938 and any other law on the basis that where any provision of the guidelines conflicts with another enactment, that other enactment will prevail. However, where the requirements of the guidelines are more rigorous, they will take precedence.

There seems to be a number of driving forces behind these guidelines, including:

• the unprecedented revelations of the financial irregularities at Satyam;
• the impact of the credit crunch on a number of overseas insurers; and
• the perceived importance of the financial sector in general to Indian economic growth and the public at large.

Of equal importance is the fact that in the coming years a number of Indian insurers are expected to come to market for the first time. According to Section 6AA of the Insurance Act, the existing position is that the Indian promoter of an Indian insurer cannot hold more than 26% of the paid-up equity. For a newly formed insurer, a holding above 26% must be gradually brought down to 26%, starting at the latest from the 10th year after the insurer commenced business. A number of insurers will be commencing their 10th year in the near future and the IRDA has already announced that it intends to publish its guidelines on insurers making public offerings soon.

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