The chairman of the National Health Review Technical Committee, Dr. Chris Atim, has described the dependence of the National Health Insurance Scheme on taxes as “progressive.”
Taxes currently constitute 69% of the scheme’s revenue sources, while premiums from subscribers constitute 31%.
Some industry players have however attributed the declining fortunes of the scheme to this system.
Many hospitals have complained that the scheme’s failure to pay their claims promptly is collapsing their facilities.
In an interview with Citi News, Dr. Atim said ; “It is not actually a disadvantage to the scheme that we depend less on premiums and more on taxes. That is how a proper insurance scheme ought to operate, one that responds to the social needs of the country should be depending more on taxes than out of pocket payments. No one should go away thinking that we need more premiums,” he said.
Other industry watchers have also attributed the seeming collapse of the scheme to mismanagement.
He added “I don’t think there is any logic to the question of the actual mix of sources of funding as one being superior to the other. The most important thing is if we have enough money to make the scheme work. Wherever it comes from, if it comes mostly from taxes, what is wrong with that? I don’t think we should be fixated on the mix of sources of funding.”
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By: Jeffrey Owuraku Sarpong/citifmonline.com/Ghana