National Health Insurance Scheme Still a Priority

The implementation of a National Health Insurance Scheme remains a priority for Jamaica. That’s according to Health Minister, Dr. Christopher Tufton who said the Government has started the process to implement the national programme to ensure universal health care for all Jamaicans.

Tufton was addressing health industry stakeholders and members of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) at a national forum on health financing at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel yesterday (December 8, 2016).

Tufton said the health insurance scheme is part of the government’s continued commitment to provide universal access to health care to all its citizens. “No Jamaican should be denied access to any clinic or hospital under the public health system if they cannot afford it. Within this context lies the challenge faced by the Government’s capacity to adequately finance public health care. This will increasingly be challenged, unless we are able to grow our economy well beyond our current rates of growth.”

The implementation of a national health insurance scheme was among the Holness-led administration’s mandate in keeping with its free health care policy. “If we have the national health insurance, it would mean that people with insurance would have already prepaid, either on their own, through a contributory scheme or through government, so some provisions would have already been made. That’s what insurance would hopefully achieve,” Tufton said.   

In a Gleaner commissioned Bill Johnson survey conducted in September this year, less than a third (32 per cent) of adult Jamaicans say they have health insurance, but more than half of these (53 per cent) have coverage only because they are part of workplace schemes.

“In a sense there is health insurance for a percentage of the population. The issue is extending that to include everybody and structuring it so that it has the revenue streams to support it. Some of that revenue stream could be contributions from employer/employee, others will have to be from the government itself and the question is where would those funds come from,” Tufton said.

Another option being explored, according to Dr. Tufton, is a dedicated tax where those revenues flow into a pool and that pool supports the expenditure and public health.  

The discussion of proposals for a National Health Insurance scheme in Jamaica is not new with the latest formal proposals being the Green Paper of 1997, which stipulated that packages of medically necessary services be universally guaranteed and managed by a Statutory Health Insurance Agency.

Dr. Tufton said the implementation of a regional health insurance scheme is also being explored. The strategy for universal access to health and health coverage was approved at the 53rd Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization.

“Through this approval, the countries of the Americas Region have manifested their commitment to advance in the direction of universal health, adopting the right to health, equity, and solidarity, as core values. You have a set of Caribbean islands with close to 8 million people, Jamaica being the giant of that. The question is, could we pool all those resources and people together to create one scheme that would generate enough revenue to support, in a critical mass, the population?”

Tufton said in order for this to happen, it would require political commitment from all parties, clarification on issues of costs and a defined management of the process. He said Jamaica is willing to explore all the possible options, even if the country has to start the process and expand it to the rest of the region.