A little over six million Ghanaians, representing only 34 per cent of the population had registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) as at September 30, 2005,Ras Boateng, Chief Executive of National Health Insurance Council (NHIC), has said and attributed the low coverage to inadequate public knowledge on the scheme. Out of this figure, four million have paid their premiums and about three million have been issued with their Identity Cards (ID), which entitled them to access medical health service. Mr Boateng, who made this known at a press briefing in Accra on the status of the NHIS, said the Council was focused on achieving a major goal of registering 50 per cent of Ghanaian population by the end of the year. He said the Council had disbursed 240 billion cedis to 127 districts mutual health insurance schemes nationwide as premiums for the exempt group as well as re-insurance to schemes that encountered financial difficulty. Those schemes on their own have collected a total of 97 billion cedis as premium from the informal sector contributors. Mr Boateng noted that the Council was faced with numerous challenges, which included huge backlog of ID cards, lack of uniformity in technological operations and procedures leading to the issuance of different ID cards, lack of trained staff and lack of adequate human resource policy framework. He said the Council had established a data processing centre to process the backlog of ID cards and gave the assurance that those who have registered and had not received their cards would have them by the end of the year. "We are also training 300 fresh graduates to help to speed up with the registration and issuance of ID cards of District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes". He said the plans were advanced to procure vehicles, computers and accessories for the scheme and that the concern of the existence of multiple tariff structures was being streamlined to effectively vet providers' claims. "Council is gearing up its support to an exercise to ensure a realistic costing of services, drugs and consumables in order for both the Council and the health services providers to settle on realistic tariff structure that will be of mutual benefit". Mr Boateng appealed to stakeholders to support the development of the scheme into a model of excellence that would become a point of reference for poverty alleviation and urged Ghanaians not to politicize the scheme. Major Courage Quashigah (Rtd) warned health care providers, who discriminated against patients with NHIS ID cards and urged the public to report any provider, who would refuse care to anybody with NHIS card for the law to deal with him or her. He urged Ghanaians to have a change in their lifestyle to prevent diseases and live longer adding: "Our life expectancy is 52 years and this is something that we should not be proud of but work to change it for the better." Mr Kwamina Bartels, Minister of Information and National Orientation, who chaired the function, urged Ghanaians to embrace the health insurance policy and to pay their premiums to have better health care at an affordable price. Source: GNA