PROPOSED MEDICAL INSURANCE FOR ELDERLY GENERATES MIXED VIEWS IN ARUA CITY

By Sunday Amandi

Arua city

The people in Arua have mixed reactions over the proposal by the government to introduce a National insurance scheme for older persons in the country.

According to the proposal revealed by Jacqueline Mbabazi, the member of parliament for older persons, insurance for older persons is long overdue because children no longer take care of their elderly parents, but peoples argument rests majorly on the suggestion that,10,000 shillings will be deducted from the elderly persons social assistance grant empowerment to fund the insurance scheme.

Daniel Apamaku argues that, though having medical insurance for the elderly is a good proposal, deducting  money from the SAGE money to fund it is un necessary as the money is too little,

“Government has done wonders for bringing this program of SAGE for the elderly people, but the proposal government is trying to come up with will not help the elderly people, how much is that money for health insurance and yet this SAGE money does not reach to 200,000 shillings, they should add some money on top of that to make it insurance for the elderly people,” Apamaku said.

However, Oria Santos Gama, the chairperson for Alivu ward in Alivu division appreciate the proposal, but said, it will need sensitization for the elderly to understand its significance,

“It needs a lot of education, you know our people came from blue, they don’t know about medical insurance yet, we need to have a lot of education for them, but it’s a very good idea, if we can educate them about it and they know the benefits, I think they will support that,” Oria said.

According to the 2024 census data, there are now approximately 2.3 million older persons in Uganda.