Ghana has been named among four African countries with over 20 per cent coverage levels with any type of health insurance.
The other three countries are Rwanda, Gabon and Burundi.
Deputy Executive Director, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Professor Edwine Barasa, who disclosed this at the NHIA-WHO Regional Conference on Financing UHC and Health Security, said Rwanda has coverage of 78%, followed by Ghana with 58.2%, Gabon with 40.8% and Burundi with 22.0%.
He noted that only eight of the 36 countries had a mean level of insurance coverage with any type of health insurance of above 10 per cent.
“Coverage of health insurance in sub-Saharan Africa is low and pro-rich. The four countries that had health insurance levels greater than 20 per cent were all characterised by substantial funding from tax revenues,” he said.
Professor Barasa thus charged the health insurance authorities in the region to embrace tax funding and mandatory contributory health insurance as a sustainable and feasible mechanism for mobilising resources for the health sector.
Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye, touching on the history of health insurance financing from 1957 said there was an Act of Parliament in 2003 to establish a national health insurance scheme.
He said the scheme which was being revised to Act 852 in 2012 was mainly financed by earmarked funds from social security and tax with enrolment being mandatory by law.
He disclosed that whereas membership coverage stood above 55 per cent of the population, the implicit benefit package covers about 95 per cent of disease conditions and the healthcare providers were contracted from public, private and faith-based sectors.
Dr. Okoe Boye said Ghana was poised to attain universal health coverage with three dimensions; reducing cost sharing, including other services to the scheme and extending to the uninsured in the country.