By EMMA OVUAKPORIE
ABUJA—The House of Representatives, Tuesday, declared that the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, over its six years of existence had failed to live up to expectation, describing the scheme as a national embarrassment, disaster and colossal failure.

To this end, the House has mandated its Committee on Health to investigate the haphazard implementation of the NHIS since inception to allow the programme get to its targeted audience.

Mr. Rasaq Bello-Osagie and 47 others had earlier moved a motion, entitled, “Investigation into the activities of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)”.

Leading debate on the motion on behalf of others, Bello-Osagie  said  it was sad to observe that six years after the establishment of NHIS, it had failed to achieve nothing, stressing that “people who should have no business in the scheme have taken centre-stage.”

While alleging that the scheme was not properly managed, he said the Health Management Organisations commissioned by NHIS to implement the scheme were poorly remunerated.

He added that the scheme has been mostly among federal civil servants; therefore the coverage was still a far cry from the ideal situation   and that only a small segment of the private sector are involved in the scheme.While contributing to the motion Hon Olumide Osoba and Hon Abubakar Momoh argued that NHIS has now turned to elitist scheme and supported the need to probe the scheme to make it work.