As residents of Addis Abeba grapple with the galloping inflation, serious concerns over the doubled Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) rates from the prior year come up during the mobilisation campaign for the current year membership fees.

The Insurance scheme provided subsidised health coverage to over two million residents of the capital in the last budget year while nearly 12 million households from 1,006 Weredas were beneficiaries nationwide.

Membership fees are usually paid in October and November with efforts kicked off in Addis Abeba and Hawassa cities in the past two weeks.

Addis Abeba City Administration has doubled the premium fee to 1,000 Br rounding up the membership fee to 1,500 Br while tripling coverage to 750 Br for household members above 18 years old.

Head of the Bureau, Yohannes Chala (MD), indicated that a study that looked at the rising cost of medicine, laboratory equipment and overall foreign currency shortages preceded the setting of the new rate.

The City Administration provided around 600 million Br to fill up the deficit last year, which will continue this year, according to Yohannes. He disclosed the plan to increase coverage by 20pc as he revealed that all federal hospitals have also revised costs in the past year.

"There is a marked increase in expenses," he said.

The Bureau Head indicated that most state-run hospitals ran out of their allotted budget under CBHI in the first half of the fiscal year, with the City Administration filling in the deficit the rest of the year.

"The accounts show a negative balance for most of the year," he told Fortune.

Since its establishment 12 years ago, the Ethiopian Health Insurance Agency (EHIA) has attempted to realise two types of insurance schemes in the country: Community-Based Health Insurance for the informal economic sector and the formal employees dubbed Social Health Insurance. It still has not taken off due to budgetary constraints.

The annual payments were 170 Br when CBHI was launched in 2012. Officials disclose that general inflation in medical inputs has contributed to the rate rise.

Deputy Director of the Agency, Muluken Argaw (PhD), insists that around 20pc of the members who cannot make payments will likely be covered for free by regional governments.

He disclosed that nine Weredas in the Somali Regional State would be included in CBHI scheme this year.

"We're hoping to increase the coverage even more," he told Fortune.

Muluken underscored that each regional state independently decides the amount of the total payment to be covered from the government's side.

"No nationwide premium gets established," he emphasised.

The officials indicate SHI schemes could begin at any time if the required amount of funding is allocated.

Zemedkun Abebe, communication director of the Agency, disclosed that the new rates are part of efforts to keep a significant majority of members as beneficiaries despite the rise in medical costs. He indicated the decision to include residents such as senior citizens and those deemed to pay the full coverage is decided by Woreda officials.