Description:
Introduction: Ethiopia recently embarked on an initiative to provide social and
community-based health insurance throughout the country. Social health insurance is one
of the possible organisational mechanisms for raising and pooling funds to finance health
services. It is necessary to carry out this study so as to establish baseline information on
Willingness to Pay for Social Health Insurance and associated factors in Muja town.
Objective: To assess Willingness to pay for social health insurance and associated
factors among government employees in Mujja town, north east Ethiopia
Methods: An institutional- based cross-sectional study was conducted on Willingness to
Pay for Social Health Insurance and associated factors among employees working in
Mujja, national and regional state of Amhara, north east Ethiopia. Stratified sampling was
used to get the total sample size of 375. The quality of data was assured by proper
designing and pre-testing of the questionnaires, training was given for both data
collectors and supervisors and every day after data collection, questionnaires were
reviewed and checked for completeness, then coded and entered into EPI info version 7
and was transferred to SPSS version 20.0 soft ware packages for data analysis.
Result: - Three hundred seventy five employees participated in the study with response
rate of 100%. About 14.4% of the employees had ever heard about health insurance
scheme. However, 37.6% of respondents were willing to pay for the suggested insurance
scheme. Willingness to pay was more unlikely among those who never heard about health
insurance, had no previous history of inability to pay for medical bills and having other
source to cover medical bill.
Conclusion: - Above one third of the respondents were willing to pay for social health
insurance; however, adequate awareness creation and discussion should be made with all
employees at various levels for the successful implementation of the scheme.
Key words: - Social health insurance, willingness to pay, willingness to join, Mujja town