MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (JIS) — Health Minister Horace Dalley says health insurance companies will be required to pay for services delivered to their clients at public health facilities.

He made the announcement at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the upgrading of the Alexandria Community Hospital in St Ann, held on the grounds of the facility on Friday.

Dalley said Government has been underwriting the entire cost of health care since 2007 when user fees were removed at hospitals and health centres. 

However, he pointed out, it is the health insurance providers that have been benefitting most from the policy, saving millions of dollars in payouts, and not the users for which it was intended.

“We are subsidising the (health) insurance companies; well that (has to stop). When you come to the (public) health facility, you are going to be asked, ‘do you have a health card.’ If you have health insurance… the health insurance company will have to pay their portion. Not from your pocket, we are not going to take your portion, we are going to take the insurance company portion to help the facility,” he explained.

“I am sure that no Jamaican will be against that…if Jamaicans know that they can get good service …they will pay …for the service…but we are going to start first with the insurance companies, the health minister said.

The MoU, which was signed with the Mind Body and Soul (MBS) Health Ministry and the Patel Foundation for Global Initiatives, is for the phase one upgrading of the Alexandria Hospital, which will include the establishment of state-of-the-art dental and pharmacy facilities at a cost of some US$250,000.