The Senate has passed a bill that will make health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians.
This was made known by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Dr Ibrahim Oloriegbe at the inauguration of Group Individual and Family Social Health Insurance Programme (GIFSHIP) on Thursday in Abuja.
“We have passed it in the Senate. Two Committees on health from the Senate and the House of Representatives worked on the bill, so the bill is before the House of Representatives just for concurrence.
“Also, the National Assembly has passed the National Health Insurance Authority Act. It will not be the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) again, it will be the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA). A scheme in NHI(S) means only one scheme. That is what has been happening.
“The NHIA will be the authority that will cover all schemes and everything will be brought together. The most important aspect of it is to make health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians,’’ he said.
Senator Oloriegbe who said the e-NHIS framework had been approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and would soon be deployed, added that the National Assembly had been supporting NHIS by appropriating the needed funds for its implementation.
“Without funds for it, it cannot work, when we considered the NHIS 2020 budget, we fully made provision for achievement of the e-NHIS; N1.5 billion was provided for that,’’ he said.
He further disclosed that the red chambers had been working with the Federal Ministry of Health to improve health coverage by giving the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) effective implementation.
“We have reviewed the manual for BHCPF in collaboration with stakeholders to make the fund more beneficial to Nigerians.
“Also, the inauguration of GIFSHIP is important to us. What we are doing today is very critical to the attainment of the objectives of GIFSHIP because we represent people.
“What we will be doing as representatives of the health sector in the national assembly is to advocate and ensure that all our colleagues register their constituencies, support and pay for their constituencies.
“We will start, all of us in leadership of five health committees in the national assembly will register our constituencies,” he said.
