The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Nigeria: Has the Policy Achieved its Intended Objectives?

Universal coverage of health is one of the goals of the United Nations and one which every African country, Nigeria inclusive strives to achieve. Referred to as NHIS, the study was motivated by a desire to review a policy with so much importance and set out to appraise the scheme’s objectives and assess the level of achievement across sectors including the Small and Medium Scale enterprises popularly known as the SMEs. Research design using the cross sectional approach was employed along with the use of convenience and random sampling, a sample of employees (150) from ten Lagos resident health maintenance organisations (HMOs) with National accreditation were used. Data was collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire and the study relied on regression analysis to derive results. The results showed that the relationship between objectives of the NHIS were significant to the predictor variables (FWA=facility well assessed, RPS=restricted to public sector, ASN=adequate subscription and HAW=high awareness), thus accepting the alternative hypothesis. However, the relationship with the SMEs was only marginal. The study, based on its findings, concludes the scheme is yet to fully achieve its intended objectives and therefore recommend that the scheme's management put effort to expand the coverage across all sectors through enlightenment, improved assess to facilities whilst also collaborating with relevant stakeholders to assuage the people’s needs with regards to good quality and affordable healthcare service.