OCR Text |
Show jor medical insurance protecting protect-ing them against the costs of serious illness or injury, either in or out of the hospital. That is an increase of 8.3 per cent of 3.5 million persons over the number protected under major medical in 1963. Loss of income insurance which helps to replace lost wages of insured persons when they are disabled due to illness or injury, protected an estimated esti-mated 48 million persons in 1964, the Institute said. This is an increase of one million persons over the nijmber protected pro-tected in 1963. Benefits paid to persons insured in-sured by loss of income policies totaled an estimated $997 mil-mion mil-mion in 1964. In 1963, $936 million were paid out. (These Insurance up, benefits more in 1963 By the end of 1964, an estimated es-timated 149 million Americans were protected by some form of health insurance against the costs of ill health, the Health Insurance Institute reported re-ported today in a review of the past year. This figure represents 78 per cent of the U.S. civilian population, the Institute said, and is an increase of 3.7 million mil-lion persons over the number protected in 1963. Benefits paid to insured persons last year were estimated esti-mated at $8.6 billion or some $800 million more than in 1963 These benefits were paid by over 1,800 insuring organizations organiza-tions including 903 insurance companies, 77 Blue Cross and 72 Blue Shield plans, and nearly near-ly 800 other health care plans. The Institute said that record rec-ord highs were established in 1964 in both the number of persons protected and in the amount of benefits paid out. Of the 149 million persons protected under hospital insurance insur-ance in 1964, an estimated 139 million persons also had surgical sur-gical expense insurance and 105 million also had regular medical coverage. The increases increas-es over the 1963 totals for surgical sur-gical and regular medical insurance in-surance were 4.1 million and 3.3 million persons respectively. Major medical expense insurance, in-surance, provided by insurance companies, continued to be the fastest growing of all health insurance programs, the Institute Insti-tute said. In 1964, an estimated estimat-ed 45.5 million persons had ma- |