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Fatwa #1479914 December 2006United States of America

Can we give this amount ($6000) to the war victim such as IRAQ Palestine etc ..

Question

I am here in USA for a 2years on H1b Visa . I had severe pain and had to go to Emergency and was diagnosed with gall bladder stones which was very critical and had an emergency surgery to remove the gall bladder and because this surgery was not done correctly, I had bile leakage which was infecting my other organs like liver etc, so I had to  under go one more emergency surgery.
All these surgeries came up to $ 60000 and later the insurance denied to pay this stating this was an pre existing condition. I was totally shocked by their claim as I dId not have faintest idea about my pain being due to gall stones.
I refuted their claim and even got my health certificate back from our home country stating I was hale and healthy when I came here but they did not agree.
We initially negotiated with the hospital but they were not willing to do so.Later we  found that the hospitals usally don't negotiate as they have two Advantages for not negotiating.
1) Tax benefit  for that excessive amount that is 40k or 60k in our case for same bills the insurance may hardly pay 10 % of the amount to the hospital .
2) They sell this account to the collection agencies and earn money .
The hospital has got their benifit  by claiming their Taxes and Tax is ultimately used by the USA govt in war etc .
Can we give this amount ($6000) to the war victim such as IRAQ Palestine etc where USA is involved . Is it correct to do so or we have to pay to the collection agencies? 
If we have to pay to  the collection agency,Islamically,is it right to pay actual amount that is $6000, even if the collection agency demands more. ?

Answer

There are two issues surrounding your query.

  1. Shar’ee position on Health Insurance.
  2. The claim of $40,000

We have always stated that health all conventional insurance schemes are prohibited. The overarching principle considering “necessity relaxing prohibition” is another issue. You cannot divert from the collection agency issue and simply estimate an amount and give it to war victims. If you honestly feel that you have been unfairly treated by the company and you do not have the financial means to pay the amount, you may obtain interest and make up the amount and pay it out.

And Allah Ta’ala knows best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai

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