Omane Boamah jabs NPP over ‘collapsed’ NHIS claims

The Minister of Communications, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, has taken a jab at the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), for repeatedly claiming that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has collapsed. According to him, the NPP is enrolling its members onto the scheme, despite claiming that it has collapsed; describing it as double standards.

The NPP has consistently accused the Mahama-led administration of starving the scheme of the necessary funds hence leading to its collapse. They have thus promised to revive it should they be given the opportunity on December 7, 2016. The law that introduced the National Health Insurance Scheme, (NHIS), was passed during the regime of the Kufuor administration. At the time, the NDC then in opposition, voted against the Bill, but turned around to promise a one-time premium ahead of the 2012 elections, only to fail to implement it. But taking his turn at the ‘Meet the Press’ session in Accra on Monday, Dr. omane Boamah said the NPP is being hypocritical because it trumpets the supposed failure of the scheme, yet touts it as an achievement after registering its members onto the supposed collapsed scheme. “Is it not ironic that the health insurance scheme which some politicians tout as having collapsed has today become a major campaign tool for some members of parliament…and you hear them boast of the number of constituents they have enrolled onto the scheme. Which is which? Has the scheme collapsed or not? If it has collapsed, why are they being so wicked to their constituents that they will enroll them on a scheme that they believe has collapsed?” He also insisted that, the Mahama-led government has invested heavily in the scheme as compared to the NPP government which started it. “We have paid the highest amount to service providers. In 2015, we paid over one billion cedis which has increased remarkably from the very modest payments of the earlier years such as a paltry GHc183 million under the NPP government. Out-patient utilization alone stood at over GHc29 million in 2015, having increased tremendously from just above GH c9 million as at 2008. These are the facts,” he argued. – By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana – See more at: http://citifmonline.com/2016/11/28/omane-boamah-jabs-npp-over-collapsed-nhis-claims/#sthash.R7K6wutG.dpuf