Govt postpones health insurance scheme
July 16, 2008
Government is delaying the mandatory National Social Health Insurance Scheme for another year at a time when National Social Security Fund (NSSF) is first tacking the scheme for all its members.
Industrial sources say there is a looming conflict of interest with the ministry of Health if NSSF, as it appears, goes ahead to start the scheme for the very employees it is targeting.
The Commissioner for Health Services, Dr Francis Runumi said because the scheme was a long-lasting policy, it does not have to be rushed to avoid making mistakes in the course of implementation.
“We are involved in consultancy studies and we found out that July this year was not a realistic time for this scheme” Dr Runumi said in an interview on July 9.
The Ministry of Health 2007/08 policy statement to Parliament indicated that, the new bill to introduce the scheme was in final stages to have if the scheme started this month. He said the government has earmarked the scheme for July 2009 seen as a more appropriate time for it to have done enough consultancy and comparative studies with countries like Tanzania and Ghana where it has been implemented successfully.
The postponement could be good news to the more than 200,000 workers who were initially opposed to it arguing that it would negatively impact on their purchasing power because they already contribute five per cent of their salaries to NSSF.
“We are optimistic that the final draft will be compact. Government announced a premature bill initially with many glaring gaps,” Workers Member of Parliament Sam Lyomoki said in an interview.
He said issues like involvement of the stakeholders, scope of benefit, management of the fund and integrating workers who already had health covers at their places of work hanged in balance.
Now that NSSF is independently rolling out the scheme, harmonising the two could be another hurdle that may again drag the process of starting a national scheme.
NSSF Managing Director David Chandi Jamwa said the ministry of Health’s involvement in the NHIS is complementary and supportive to NSSF’s efforts, but of no policy or operational nature.
“The choice of the appropriate modus operandi for its planned implementation appears to be a difficult one and a source of disagreement within the government,” he said in a statement.
He said many countries across the world have their medical insurance scheme run by their national social security providers without any policy or operational involvement by their respective ministries or departments of health.
Under the NSSF scheme there will be no need for any additional contributions on the part of the members of NSSF for any medical insurance. Mr Jamwa said up to 3 per cent of an employee’s total 15 per cent contribution to NSSF would be more than adequate for medical coverage to members and their dependants.
According to government’s initial draft plan, every employer was required to contribute 4 per cent of every employee’s gross salary towards the scheme as health insurance and another 4 per cent would be deducted from the employee’s salary making it a total 8 per cent for every employee.
NSSF is anchoring its argument on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) standard on social security, which includes medical insurance/coverage as a core component of the social security benefits.
References : http://www.monitor.co.ug |
