Minority in Parliament states its position on NHIS

Accra, Aug. 22, GNA- The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority caucus in Parliament, on Friday called for an inter-party consultative group to iron out "fundamental aspects of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) before the passage of the Bill.

The group include the Trade Union Congress (TUC) the consultative forum, civil society groups as well as health care professionals and other stakeholders.

The Minority group said it believes that it was more important to have broad-based discussions to attract support from all sections of the society.

Mr Alban Bagbin, Minority Leader, said this at a press conference to articulate their position on what they consider to be "fundamental flaws in the Bill and why it should not be passed in the present state".

"We have conducted a detailed study, clause by clause of the Bill, which clearly indicate to any objective observer that there are serious policy and technical problems with the Bill and unless these are resolved, any rushed passage of the Bill will result in its being moribund at birth", he said

He said if the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government persists in ignoring the apprehensions of critical stakeholders and pushes the NHIS Bill through Parliament in its present state, the scheme that will be born out of the Bill will not result in the expected increase in access to quality health care as envisaged.

The Minority was of the view that the NHIS Bill is of such fundamental importance that to attempt to hurriedly force its passage in an emergency session, with its very wide-ranging implications, will do a disservice to the people of Ghana and defeat the objectives of the Bill itself.

Mr Bagbin said business in the House, is governed by the Constitution and the Standing Orders of Parliament, which must not be conducted in haphazard manner.

He said Article 106 (13) of the Constitution and Standing Order 119 clearly state that it is the relevant Select Committee of the House that deliberate and determines whether a Bill is of urgent nature or not. "When such determination had been made a report is presented to the House for adoption and that if a Bill is determined to be of an urgent nature it need not be published but NHIS Bill and the manner it was handled does not meet any of these criteria." More

Mr Bagbin said the NHIS Bill was published and laid in Parliament like any ordinary Bill and that the Joint Committees of Health and Finance that dealt with it did not deliberate on its urgency and no report brought to Parliament to testify to that effect.

"The Minority believes that as a matter of principle, urgent business requiring consideration at an emergency session should be limited to matters concerning national security or the need to avert constitutional crisis", he said.

The Minority Leader said procedurally, the decision to include largely routine business in an emergency session of the House, called to consider an extension of the state of emergency in Dagbon is wrong and a dangerous precedent that should not be countenanced.

"There is a clear and present danger of scheduling routine business at short notice during recess at a time when members have either travelled or have other urgent commitments outside the House", the Minority Leader said.

Mr Bagbin mentioned some fundamental objections of the Bill such as an over bloated bureaucracy with offices in all the 110 districts, that is likely to absorb a substantial portion of the resources of the scheme such that resources that would be used to provide a healthcare would instead, be used to service a bureaucracy.

He said since every person shall be contributing towards the scheme through the National Health Insurance Levy, it is inequitable to exclude any person from the scheme.

Another objection mentioned by the Minority Leader was that a bill of such importance and seeking to harness such major resources does not give any indication of what minimum health benefit a member of the scheme shall be entitled to, thus leaving everything to the discretion of the Minister to be determined by regulations.

"This is unacceptable. The Bill must spell out the basic health care benefits and the Minister should only be given the discretion to amend the list from time to time by regulation," he said. Mr Bagbin said there is also the fundamental objection to using two-and-a-half per cent SSNIT pension contribution to fund the Scheme since the SSNIT pension scheme as it exists today, offers a retired worker relatively meagre pensions.

"A deduction of two-and-a-half per cent of workers contributions to the pension scheme will further erode SSNIT's ability to significantly improve stipends to pensioners in the short to medium term."

"Similarly there is a fundamental objection to what is essentially a two-and-a-half per cent increase in the VAT rate stated in the Bill as a health levy on all expenditure and transactions," adding that "the timing of this particular levy at a time when Ghanaians have been overloaded to the point of collapse with numerous back-breaking taxes.

A further increase in VAT at this time from 12 and-a-half to 15 per cent will impact adversely on the ordinary Ghanaian", he said. Mr Bagbin said it is for these reasons and the detailed objections, that the Minority raised with respect to the two-and-a-half per cent SSNIT contributions and the two-and-a-half per cent VAT rate increase that have led us to "insist that the emergency processing of the NHIS Bill should abate forthwith."