NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEME AN ALTERNATIVE TO HEALTH CARE FINANCING

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1.        BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:
This document has been prepared against the historical background of the growth and development of the health services, the previous attempts to formulate national policies on health and the present state of the health services.  The policy proposed and the strategies emerging from it have been based on appreciation of the current status of the health of the people of Nigeria, with a careful analysis of the major factors, which affect the health of the population, as well as the nature of interventions, which can produce improvement most rapidly and economically.
The increasing cost of drugs and infrastructure and the mobility of all individuals, corporate bodies and nations to conveniently meet the costs due to the pressures of other necessities – political, economic, social and education – have stimulated the search for other means of finding health care.
Risk of accident and sudden illness are part of the elements involved or in everyday activities of human life which is not speculative but pure risk or fortuitous.  The accident or ill-health can cause disability which can be total leading to permanent loss of income, and greater economic loss than that produced by death, as the disabled still requires.  Most necessities like food, housing and they very expensive medical care, cost of which will seriously erode the family’s fortune, and standard of living.  National Health Insurance serves as definite one of a variety of approaches to healthcare.
We are now in an era where it is not only paramount for health care delivery to be affordable, and accessible but also to be qualitative and sustainable.  The delivery of health care, using the medium of a National health Insurance Scheme is a well tested and successful means of health care delivery worldwide.