Bill Passed to Create NHI Authority, Aims to Expand Health Insurance

Another important bill that was passed today sought to establish a National Health Insurance (NHI) authority and shift the program’s responsibility from the Ministry of Health and Wellness to the Ministry of Finance. Prime Minister John Briceno says the bill will facilitate the expansion of the NHI scheme and improve its transparency.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “In a few months NHI will be rolled out in the Cayo district thanks to boom provided by the people’s Boledo, another signature achievement of this government. One family was benefitting from the Boledo Madam Speaker. Under the PUP Boledo it benefits everybody because everybody fu win Madam Speaker. And very soon every single Belizan man woman and child will have access to the National Health Insurance no matter where they live in this country. Further to that the Government removed all and we mean all fees and costs from every public health facility in country with exception of KHMH which pretty soon will do the same and soon we will build another new state of the art hospital in Belize City to complement the work of KHMH. They had $1.1 Billion dollars and they couldn’t think to do those things. $1.1 billion dollars. I have to remind them. $600 million dollars from the oil money, over $500 million from PetroCaribe and they couldn’t even think to build a new hospital nowhere in the country. They were getting free money to build from the European Union to build a hospital here in the nation’s capital and they were so incompetent or maybe they couldn’t hustle from it they lost that money and today thanks to the PUP government we are going to build a state of the art hospital in Belmopan.”

The bill was passed despite the opposition’s disapproval.