Dar es Salaam. The government yesterday tabled the Universal Health Insurance (UHI) Bill 2022 in Parliament providing compulsory conditions for people to have registered in insurance schemes in order to secure several social services.
The Bill also introduces the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority (Tira) as the overall regulator mandated to oversee insurance schemes and quality of provided healthcare services.
It imposes hefty penalties of up to Sh100 million to an individual who contravenes the Act or a maximum jail term of not less than 12 months.
According to Section 32(a)(h) of the Bill, it will be compulsory for citizens to have health insurance whenever seeking driving license, motor vehicles insurance and admitting children for advanced secondary education or colleges.
Other services that will also be issued after producing evidence of being enrolled in health insurance schemes are provision of travel document (passport), Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN), business license, visa, simcard registration and provision of national identification card (ID).
“Authorities will ensure that registration and permit provision to applicants will conform to a condition of membership confirmation in the health insurance scheme,” reads part of the section.
However, Section 7(i) introduces the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority (Tira) as the sole regulation body mandated to regulate insurance activities in the country.
“For the purpose of ensuring efficiency in executing the UHI system, the authority will have three obligations: registration of health insurance schemes, monitoring the quality of services provided by contracted services providers and ensuring health insurances provide basic benefits bundles as provided by the act, ” reads the bill in part.
The regulator will also have the responsibility to ensure that provided services correlates with contributions made, issue payment guidelines to service providers and guidelines that will assure there is efficient operation in supervision of health insurance