Factors influencing uptake of health insurance coverage in Uganda

Abstract

Uganda is the only country in East Africa without a legally recognizable national health scheme. Health insurers in the region contribute 1% to health spending. As a developing country with a low tax base, the country’s only current health insurance options are limited to community-based schemes and employer-based schemes. The absence of prepaid health schemes has increased the number of premature and preventable deaths, kept maternal and neonatal deaths high due to delays in service delivery because of pending payments. This only drifts Uganda away from realizing universal health coverage and the 70% vision 2040 health insurance target. The main objective of the study was to assess the factors influencing the uptake of health insurance in Uganda. From the analysis, highest percentage of people in Northern Uganda weren’t covered by the health insurance (97.34%) in Northern Uganda. 51.78% of the respondents were between 25-49 years, 60.45% of the respondents were married, and 66.37% were residents of urban areas. From the bivariate analysis, health insurance uptake had a significant relationship with age, marital status, wealth index, education level, and place of residence since p values all less than 0.05 at 5% level of significance using the Pearson Chi squared measure of association. From the multivariate analysis which was performed using the logistic regression revealed that health insurance uptake had a statistical significance relationship with age group 0f 75+ in that the coefficient was 3.435 higher relative to those between 0-24 years for those using insurance than those not using insurance. In conclusion, Highest percentage of 75+ years people were covered by insurance since they are prone to diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart diseases among others. People should be sensitized on the importance of insurance, explaining to the basic concepts insurance, subsidizing to support health insurance policies so as to increase the health insurance coverage in Uganda.