On May 19, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the National Health Insurance Authority bill 2021 into law. The new Act repeals the National Health Insurance Scheme Act (Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004). It establishes the National Health Insurance Authority to promote, regulate and integrate health insurance schemes; harness private sector participation in health care services and work towards achieving Universal Health Coverage for all Nigerians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among several functions, the new Authority is\nto: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Health Authority is to be headed\nby a Governing Council comprising a Chairman and members who shall include the\nDirector General of the Authority, representatives of government ministries,\nthe Armed Forces, organised labour unions, a Civil Society Organisation in the\nhealth sector, representatives of each of the geo-political zones. The Director\nGeneral of the Authority shall be appointed for a term of 5 years which is\nrenewable once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Act makes it mandatory for every\nperson resident in Nigeria to obtain health insurance. Residents include\nemployers and employees in private and public sectors employing five or more\nstaff, informal sector employees and all other residents of Nigeria. It also\nprovides that a person who participates in a State mandated health scheme may\nalso obtain private health insurance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
States are expected to provide basic minimum\npackage of care to all residents of Nigeria. In furtherance to this, the\nNational Health Insurance Authority will implement the Basic Health Care\nProvision Fund under the National Health Act 2014 and any guidelines developed\nin that regard. State health schemes will be responsible for the management of\nthe Fund and monitoring its implementation. Where a State has not established a\nhealth scheme, it may use the services of a Third Party Administrator pending\nthe establishment of its health scheme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Act establishes a Vulnerable Group Fund,\nfrom which subsidies shall be paid to State health insurance schemes for the\nhealth care of the vulnerable and indigent in Nigeria. The Governing Council of\nthe National Health Insurance Authority shall be responsible for the management\nof the Fund. Vulnerable Group as defined in the Act include children under 5\nyears of age, the aged, physically and mentally challenged and the indigent, as\nmay be defined from time to time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Act makes other provisions as it relates to\ncontributions under health insurance schemes, including for vulnerable persons;\naccreditation of health maintenance organisations, mutual health associations, third\nparty administrators and healthcare providers. It also establishes offices for the National Health Insurance Authority\nin the States and Federal Capital Territory, and provides for their\nadministration, finances and functions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Health Insurance Authority Act\ndefines several offences in relation to its provisions, which are mostly\nfinancial in nature, and states that an offender is liable to prosecution under\nthe relevant laws guiding such financial transactions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In general, the Act appears to be an\nimprovement on the repealed National Health Insurance Scheme Act, 2004 and aims\nto provide health insurance coverage for all Nigerian residents in order to\nattain Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On May 19, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the National Health Insurance Authority bill 2021 into law. The new Act repeals the National Health Insurance Scheme Act (Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004). It establishes the National Health Insurance Authority to promote, regulate and integrate health insurance schemes; harness private sector participation in health care […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2700,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions\/2700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}