Rawlings started NHIS - Bagbin

The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has said the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which is believed to be the brainchild of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), started during the era of former President Jerry John Rawlings.

According to him, the Rawlings administration even piloted the scheme in some districts but could not fully implement the policy because it lost the 2000 elections.

The implementation of the NHIS replaced the ‘cash and carry’ system of health delivery in the country.

In 2003, with Mr Kufuor as President of Ghana, the scheme was passed into law to provide equitable access and financial coverage for basic health care services to the Ghanaian population.

But speaking to Class News’ Kwesi Parker-Wilson on the sidelines of a panel discussion of leading members of the NDC as part of the party’s yearlong 25th anniversary celebrations in Accra on Thursday, 8 June 2017, Mr Bagbin said the scheme was conceived by the NDC.

“National Health Insurance was started during the Rawlings era. A whole secretariat was started, research was done, there were reports and there were pilot schemes for the National Health Insurance. We had one in Damongo and Dodowa. We had pilot schemes and some districts even started them before we lost elections in 2000,” he stated, adding: “That was what they [NPP] picked and [were] able to bring the legislation to parliament in 2003 and that they say it’s their creation,” the Nadowli-Kaleo MP said.

According to him, the NDC exists to create a just and equitable society making it the father of Ghana’s democratic experiment.