The Role of Health Insurance in The Delivery of Quality Healthcare for All Nigerians
by The introduction of health insurance is a way of bringing quality healthcare to the people at a low rate.
THE ROLE OF HEALTH INSURANCE IN THE DELIVERY OF QUALITY HEALTHCARE FOR ALL NIGERIANS
Healthcare delivery (Any arrangement that takes care of health needs in a country) in the United State America is left almost entirely in the hand of the entrepreneurs. The citizens are at the mercy of the capitalists who invariably derive substantial profits from such policy. Physicians in particular and the other health workers are highly remunerated. Consequently, health care is obtained at a very high cost whilst the highest quality is accessible to the highest bidder. Indeed, efforts to bring down the cost of healthcare and make it accessible to the poor by the introduction of National Health Insurance Scheme are usually blocked by pressure groups which have vested interest in the organisation of health services in the United States. There view is that health care should not be treated in isolation from the activities of other professional groups within a capitalist Society.
Health care delivery in Nigeria as a capitalist State is not different from the picture above, though government participate more in the delivery of health care to its citizens than in America. Due to the capitalist nature of Nigerian economy, healthcare deliveries in private and public hospitals are not free. In order to get quality healthcare, the patients need to pay for everything needed for his/her treatment. Hence the highest bidder gets the best quality care. Even in government hospitals, operation and treatment of certain disease is not done if the patient did not first give substantial deposit. This has made quality health care to be accessibly only to those how can pay immediately the needed huge deposit.
In order to arrest this ugly situation, government have come up with policies to checkmate the growing gap between the rich and the poor to access good and quality healthcare. Insurance policies are one of the ways to checkmate the ugly trend (e.g. National Health Insurance Scheme). The introduction of health insurance is a way of bringing quality healthcare to the people at a low rate. Many Nigerians have not been enlightened on the huge benefit of health insurance. People have not understood the benefit of paying a specific amount of money to an insurance company in order to get health insurance. They need to be enlightened about health insurance as it is one of the best way of insuring quality healthcare in a capitalist State.
Health Insurance helps to indirectly subsidize medical cost or burden on the people. This is done by a customer paying little amount of money to an Insurance Company, for the company to take the responsibility of the individuals health related problems for a specified time.
In conclusion, though Health Insurance has been a success in Nigeria, more work needs to be done in other to enlighten the masses on the need to have health insurance.
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