Abuja – The Health and Managed Care Association of Nigeria (HMCAN) on Thursday urged the Federal government to make health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians.
The Chairman of the association, Dr Kolawole Owoka, made the call when she featured on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.
According to him, making the scheme compulsory will facilitate the achievement of Universal Health Coverage and make health insurance programmes more robust.
“WHO has said it repeatedly, to get Universal Health Coverage is very simple, all we need do is let the government make health insurance mandatory.
“Once it is mandatory, different polls will arise, different schemes will start coming up and you will see that the whole enterprise, the whole health sector will be awash with energy.
“That is the first step the government needs to take; they have to make it mandatory.
“President Obasanjo launched it in 2005, but he did not make it mandatory, and that is why we are still were we are, if we need to move forward we need to make it mandatory.
“That is the first thing.”
Owoka stated that the government can also engage prepaid scheme platforms for assisting people who cannot afford healthcare.
He underscored the importance of introducing a prepaid scheme in all hospitals across the country.
According to him, outside this, there is no other bigger thing the government can offer to the people to encourage them to work harder to build a vibrant economy for the country.
Sharing the same views, Dr Lekan Ewenla, the Chairman, Publicity Committee of the association, said only a handful of the populace had been captured under health insurance programmes.
He, therefore, said that making health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians would amount to strengthening the operational licences given to health maintenance organisations.
“If we look at the percentage of the coverage as we speak today is far less than what anybody can even come out boldly and say on air; its far less than five per cent.
“If you take your pen and multiply five per cent of Nigeria across 170 million, it’s not up to 10 million.
“So why should we continue to say we are running health insurance when the percentage of coverage is still very poor.
“And the only thing that could make it to grow steadily and reach those that is in the three or whatever categories of life or age they are, is when it is made mandatory.
`So, we want to call on the president, we are quite in tune with what the president is doing and we are in support of every step that the government is taking.
“We want to suggest strongly that the health insurance should be made mandatory.
“All of us are Nigerians and we believe that it is all of us that will build this economy; it is us that will build this country.
“We’ve been given the licence as Health Maintenance Organisations to do this.
“But we need that licence to be enhanced by making health insurance mandatory.”