Parliament has approved GH¢6.87 billion for disbursement of the National Health Insurance Fund for 2024 to enable the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to undertake its activities for the year.
The object of the fund is to pay for healthcare services of members of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
The sources for the fund include; the National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL), 2.5 per cent of a person’s Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contribution, monies approved for the fund by Parliament, moneys that accrue to the fund from investments made by the authority, grants, donations, gifts and any other voluntary contributions made to the fund.
The NHIA also received an amount of GH¢4.532 billion from the Ministry of Finance for the year ended December 31, 2023.
Premium collected by the authority amounted to GH¢260.45 million.
The health wellness package which is an initiative of the Chief Executive Officer, Dr Da Costa Aboagye as noted by the Committee of the Whole in Parliament is designed to offer NHIS members access to essential health assessments, which would potentially include vital checks such as blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and others and the authority has cost it GH¢3 million and funds has been allocated for the exercise accordingly.
On Biometric ID Cards & Authentication System, the committee noted that the NHIA plans to purchase 3m Ghana cards for GH¢245.70 million (unit cost of GH¢81.90) for all children aged six to 14 years.
On whether procuring Ghana cards for children is a mandate of the authority, Dr Aboagye stated that they had the mandate to provide NHIA cards for the children, however, instead of procuring NHIA cards, they intend to enrol the children on Ghana cards.
Dr Aboagye informed the committee that children in this age group currently do not have Ghana cards and as such printing Ghana cards instead of NHIS cards for them would in the long run save cost on data integration with the NIA and extend their NHIA card’s validity from five to 10 years.
He asserted that they could produce the cards once funds were allocated.
Dr Aboagye assured that the GH¢2 million would be an emergency dialysis support for the needy but an actuarial modelling was currently ongoing for the authority to determine the actual cost.
The committee, having thoroughly examined the Distribution Formula for the National Health Insurance Fund for 2024, said that the formula had allocated fairly the resources across the various levels of health in line with the government’s objective to deliver accessible and affordable health care to all Ghanaians.
BY TIMES REPORTER
