Does Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme Offer Protection to the Vulnerable?

Mawuli Kushitor
Akua Obeng-Dwamena
Charles Asabere, University of Ghana, Regional Institute for Population Studies

Although the National Health Insurance Scheme was instituted as a broad system level social strategy to improve access to health care for low income households to protect them against catastrophic health care financing, there is a strong body of work that suggests that the NHIS benefits more affluent people more depriving low-income households of access to care. We investigate access to NHIS amongst in the deprived Volta Region of Ghana where a highly structured patriarchal system deprives women the opportunity to own a means of production. We applied both quantitative and spatial modelling technics to a sample of 11,201 women. The results revealed that only 36% of the women had access to an active health insurance whilst the vast majority of women did not have access to NHIS. The spatial analysis further revealed that rural communities within the largely poor Volta Region were least likely to have access to care.

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 Presented in Session 8. Economy, Labor Force, Education, & Inequality