The governing New Patriotic Party has cleared all arrears owed the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) totaling GHS1.2 billion which it inherited from the previous government, President Nana Akufo-Addo has said.
President Akufo-Addo was speaking at his encounter with the media on Friday, December 13, 2019.
He indicated that all debts owed the NHIA which threatened to collapse the scheme when his administration took over the reins of government had been cleared.
President Akufo-Addo said: “Especially, the indebtedness that we inherited, we have also been able to deal with it; GHS1.2 billion of arrears on the National Health Insurance Scheme and the indebtedness of the scheme that threatened the idea of an insurance scheme and was gradually turning the scheme back to a cash-and-carry system. That has been arrested. Today, we’re talking about a National Health Insurance Scheme where the arrears are within four to five months.”
The President also indicated that currently the National Health Insurance Scheme has about a three-month in-built delay of arrears to settle.
“As of May this year, the indebtedness on the National Health Insurance Scheme had been fully discharged. The claims of up to September are now those that are being dealt with in the system because there’s always a line in the National Health Insurance Scheme between the service, the claim and the payment, so, there’s a sort of almost in-built three-month delay in settling arrears.
“We had four, five months; it’s not the best, but it’s certainly a vast improvement of what we inherited and we want to continue to make sure that the scheme is totally current, which is going, therefore, to enable ordinary people to have access to healthcare at an affordable rate,” the President noted.