NHIA urges CBN to make health insurance requirement to open bank account

The National Health Insurance Authority is currently carrying out strategic advocacy visits to the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) and other key government agencies, as part of efforts to ensure successful implementation of the new insurance law which makes insurance compulsory for all.

Emmanuel Ononokpono, Public Affairs Manager, NHIA, said the Authority is advocating to the CBN to consider making health insurance one of the requirements for Nigerians to open a bank account.

Ononokpono reiterated that health insurance is the best bet towards achieving and achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for all Nigerians, hence the Authority is deploying innovative methods to ensure that all citizens are enrolled.

He said this on Friday at a three-day conference on “Universal Health Coverage (UHC): How Can Nigeria Get it Right – the Role of the Media”, organized by the Association of Nigerian Health Journalists (ANHEJ) in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Akwanga, Nasarawa state.

“Every Nigerian must have health insurance, but we can’t stand on the streets to compel Nigerians, we will look for innovative approaches. We are considering many options.

“We are hoping that we will tell the Central Bank to for instance issue a circular that when a persons wants to open an account, he or she will in addition to their drivers licence electricity bill, show their health insurance, that’s part of the things we are looking at, it’s part of the advocacy we are hoping to do. We are still engaging innovatively,” he said.

The public Affairs manager also informed that the NHIA is urging the government to allocate an oil bloc to cater for the 83 million vulnerable Nigerians specified in the Act, and approve the one kobo per second telecommunication tax for the vulnerable group.

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“Whatever that is accrued from the oil bloc which he used to fund the vulnerable people”he said while noting that an oil bloc could cost at least $500 million.

Ononokpono expressed concern that only less than 15 percent of Nigerians, mostly government employees have health insurance while the larger population pay out of their pockets.

He, however assured that the NHIA is now better positioned to drive the health insurance for all and attain UHC by 2030. He stressed that health insurance is the key insurance that will salvage Nigeria’s health sector and urged the support of the media and other key stakeholders to achieve the desired goal.