The Minority in Parliament has raised concerns of the imminent collapse of the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme and accused the government of deliberately starving the scheme of the needed funding.
The Minority stressed that contrary to claims by President Nana Addo Danwka Akufo-Addo in his message on the State of the Nation that the NHIS is buoyant; the scheme has been in steep decline since the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government took over the reins of government.
They lamented that the government has not only starved the scheme of cash through consistent delays in payment and decrease in releases, capping of the fund has also sounded a knell of the looming demise of the NHIS.
The Minority raised these concerns at a media briefing addressed by Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Ranking Member of the Health Committee and Member of Parliament for Juaboso.
He noted the distress that the NHIS is facing is compounded by the lies that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has continued to churn out about the scheme.
According to him, while the President wants Ghanaians to believe the NHIS is buoyant, active membership has declined from 10.422 million in 2017 to 10.410 million in 2018.
The Ranking asserted that while the government also claims to have paid GH¢1.2 billion arrears it inherited from the previous administration to bring the operations of the scheme to life, the 2017 NHIS fund formula document indicates that the unpaid arrears amount to only GH¢425.79million.
The Minority noted that while the government has continued to receive more money in NHI levies and SSNIT, releases have dwindled since 2017.
Mr. Akandoh disclosed that in 2016, GH¢1.102 billion was released to the scheme from the reported collection of GH¢1.279 billion.
In contrast, however, in 2017, out of the reported collection of GH¢1.579 billion, only GH¢660.40 million was released.
The release, he said, dwindled further in 2018 when only GH¢506.80 million was released from the reported GH¢1.579 billion collected.
The Ranking accused the government of also siphoning monies from the NHIS through capping and pushing the monies into avenues that are yet to be accounted for.
According to him, the NHI levy in 2017 collected a total of GH¢2.234 billion, however, GH¢419.4 million was capped and only GH¢1.815 billion was allocated to the fund.
“In 2019 GH¢2.381 billion was collected but only GH¢1.693 billion was allocated and an amount of GH¢688.3 was capped.”
“In 2020, the budgeted NHI levy is GH¢2.583 billion, the amount to be allocated is GH¢2.192 billion and the amount to be capped is GH¢390.6 million,” he stated.
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He argued that the capped amount could have gone to pay the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), Health Insurance Service Providers Association (HIPSAG) and the Private Health Facilities Association of Ghana who have all threatened to withdraw their services.
According to him, the challenges have become enormous such that almost all key stakeholders in the NHIS are financially bleeding and threatening to withdraw their services or have done so already.
This development, he said, is adversely affecting the NHIS and stressed that any responsible government would have calmed the situation by assuring service providers of prompt payment and making frantic efforts to do so.
Mr. Akandoh indicated that various providers are drowning in debts to SSNIT, the GRA and the ECG with many health facilities in court for failure to settle these payments.
The Minority charged the President, to be honest to the Ghanaian public and speak to facts about the NHIS as contained in reports of the scheme and also redeem its obligation under the law and release funds to resuscitate the scheme from its current position at the intensive care unit (ICU)
