In 2002, members of a Pune-based women’s group, followingdifficulties faced by a member after a heart operation, decided to address and increasetheir capability to hedge themselves against such risks. When an insurerpresented a product matching their capacity to pay, the immediate question was:“Can we get the money back if we are not sick?” On receiving a negative answerfrom the insurer they concluded that they had no incentive to join this plan.

This incident made Uplift to think risk sharing as a morerelevant model than transferring the risks. We realized that risk sharing wouldalso help in reducing the traditional ills of health insurance (moral hazardand fraud) as members would own the programme and since the contribution istheirs they should be the one deciding the benefits. Further a baseline surveywith families living in the slums to assess capacity to pay brought out threecritical issues, that any health financing for the poor should address-familieswanted to know the right doctor, right treatment and right cost. Here was bornthe idea of access to health care.

Starting with 300 women in 2003, today Uplift’s Mutualsmodel associates more than 150,000 lives across five partner organisations inMaharashtra and Rajasthan.

Uplift has a technical team that designs the entire end toend Health Mutuals scheme that includes actuarial, medical , capacity building, monitoring and evaluation and IT skills.

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