HPR93 The Socio-Economic Capabilities of the Rwanda Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) Beneficiaries

Abstract

Since 2000 when the Rwanda CBHI scheme was establishment, premiums have only been revised in 2011. To ensure the CBHI’s sustainability, there have been calls for various reforms including the revision of the premiums to reflect current socio-economic conditions. This study was thus initiated to assess the willingness and ability of people of different socio-economic conditions to pay an increased premium for an improved CBHI - aligned to Rwanda’s Ubudehe socio-economic categorization, where category-1 are the poorest and category-4 the upper income earners. The CBHI premiums are structured along these categories i.e., Category-I households pay RWF3,000 per person (and are fully subsidized), Category II & III RWF3,000 and Category-IV RWF7,000.