NDC’s Free Primary Health Care policy will completely collapse NHIS - MP

The Member of Parliament for Sehwi Wiawso, Dr Kwaku Afriyie, has said the Free Primary Health Care policy contained in the manifesto of the opposition National Democratic Congress will cause a complete collapse of the National Health Insurance Scheme.

Speaking on Okay Fm on Wednesday, September 9, 2020, the former Western Regional Minister said the policy lacks a firm foundation and will therefore put unwarranted strain on the NHIS causing the health policy to cripple.

“If they are able to implement what they intend on doing it will cause a collapse of the Health Insurance Scheme. They will collapse it completely. There is a scope and basis for every policy. The NHIS policy was incidentally introduced through me under the leadership of President Kufuor so I know the brain and spirit behind it.

All over the world, insurance policies are started with the formal sector, what makes the Ghanaian version introduced under President Kufuor unique was that we used the informal sector as the foundation and later introduced the others. I am yet to read the full document but with what they intend to do what will be important is to ask whether services at the district hospital will be free because we are told their target is from the district hospital and below. If that’s the situation, they will completely finish the NHIS,” he stated.

Kwaku Afriyie said the Free Primary Policy as proposed by the NDC if successfully implemented, will cause the over 75% of the Ghanaian population whose usual point of call for health services are the district hospitals and below to cease paying their NHIS premium. He indicated that this will essentially cause the NHIS to grind to a halt.

He mentioned how the NDC under the late President Mills promised a similar policy in the One-Time Premium policy and described it as “actuarial nonsense.”

“I am not surprised; it was the same way they wanted to introduce a onetime premium policy. Ghanaians say they were not able to implement it but I call it an actuarial nonsense. It is not an insult but it is just like buying a car and paying insurance premium just once expecting government to fix its fault or replace it when necessary,” the MP said.

Dr Afriyie accused the NDC of harbouring a tendency to wreck the National Insurance Scheme and lamented how the opposition party is making promises of providing free policies without considering their cost and source of funding.

“The NHIS has some few challenges that we are still working on addressing but what they are promising means a collapse of the NHIS; they have that tendency. One thing that bothers me is that they have addressed it to the village people because of the free soundbites they keep repeating. This is not Free SHS because with the Free SHS government knew of cost but for health, you can’t make projections,” he said.