Health insurance is one of the most powerful tools available to any government seeking to protect its citizens from the financial ruin of illness. The principle is simple: pool the risks of a large number of people, distribute the financial burden through prepayment, and ensure that people can access care without catastrophic costs at the point of need. For Nigeria, a country of over 220 million people, achieving universal health insurance coverage is not merely a policy aspiration. It is a survival imperative.
Yet decades after the first attempts to build a national health insurance framework, Nigeria remains one of the most underinsured nations in the world. Out-of-pocket payments account for over 70% of total health expenditure, the highest proportion in Africa.
The Insurance Journey in Nigeria
Nigeria’s health insurance story began in 1962, when the first attempt to establish a formal health insurance system was made, but the Nigerian
This post was originally published on this site.
