Govt plans health insurance policy

  A doctor attends to child living with HIV/Aids at Mildmay Centre recently.
By Sarah Tumwebaze

In Summary

The government makes a second attempt at ensuring Ugandans subscribe to an insurance premium.

The government has voiced its intention to start a compulsory Social Insurance Policy to boost health services in the country.

Speaking at the closure of a two-day summit organised by Uganda Medical Association in Kampala on Friday, the Presidential Advisor on Population and Health, Dr Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe, said the Ministry of Health ranks last among the stakeholders financing health services to citizens.




 She said it was alarming that the person at the grass-roots, who pays taxes to government, meets 43 per cent of all their medical bills while government only takes care of five per cent.



 “We understand how complex running such premium in a developing country like Uganda will be...but we are optimistic that gradually it will be perfected,” she said.

The Health ministry permanent secretary, Dr Asuman Lukwago, said they had completed discussions with the first Parliament council about the insurance policy.

“We are waiting for the policy to be drafted into a Bill and we hope that by the end of this financial year, it will have had its first tabling before Parliament.”

Dr Lukwago said since the rich could afford to pay for insurance and yet a year might elapse without them falling sick, “what they have paid can be used by another person at the grassroots who cannot afford the treatment”.

In 2006, Cabinet approved the National Hospital Insurance Fund to make it compulsory for workers to pay health insurance to the fund. But because some employers already had health insurance schemes for their employees in private hospitals, the idea was unacceptable