Health care financing in Nigeria is dominated by private out-of-pocket payment that is
not affordable to the poor. This has greatly reduced access to quality health care for the
predominantly rural poor. Insurance schemes as options for increasing access to health care
services have not received considerable attention in Nigeria. In this regard, a community
health prepayment scheme is proposed, and the Contingent Valuation Method is used to
investigate the willingness of rural households to pay for this scheme. Contributing through
agricultural commodities produced statistically higher estimates than through direct cash.
Also, by incorporating uncertainty in responses using the Random Valuation Model, higher
contribution amounts were obtained. This provides an option for its use in healthcare
contingent valuation studies where respondents are uncertain about their true responses.
The groups that are willing to pay lesser amounts into the scheme as compared with their
counterparts are women, the less educated, and the less wealthy households.