Senate Passes Bill on Compulsory Health Insurance for Every Nigerian  

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Nwolu Obiajulu

Obiajulu Nwolu is an established writer at africannewstoday.com. He is passionate about African affairs. He loves writing about interesting facts relating to the African continent and enjoys sharing his knowledge with others.

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Dr Ibrahim Oloriegbe, Chairman, Senate Committee on Health has disclosed that the Senate has passed a bill that makes health insurance compulsory for every Nigerian.

He stated this on Thursday in Abuja at the inauguration of Group Individual and Family Social Health Insurance Programme (GIFSHIP).

He said, “We have passed it in the Senate. Two Committees on health from Senate and the House of Representatives worked on the bill, so the bill is before the House of Representatives just for concurrence.

“Also, the National Assembly has passed the National Health Insurance Authority Act. It will not be National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) again, it will be National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) . A scheme in NHI(S) means only one scheme. That is what has been happening.

“The NHIA will be authority that will cover all schemes and everything will be brought together. The most important aspect of it is to make health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians,’’ he said.

According to Oloriegbe, the e-NHIS framework had been approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and would soon be deployed.

He added that the legislature had been lending support to NHIS by approving the needed funds for its implementation.

He said, “Without funds for it, it cannot work, when we considered the NHIS 2020 budget, we fully made provision for achievement of the e-NHIS; N1.5 billion was provided for that.’’