Editorials
Relook the ambitious health cover proposals
Friday September 08 2023
The National Hospital Insurance Fund building in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NMG
The Bill seeking to introduce health insurance for all Kenyans has proposals with major financial implications that should first be studied to determine their sustainability and impact on the government’s fiscal position.
The draft Social Health Insurance Bill 2023 proposes that the national and county governments will pay premiums on behalf of poor households once the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) becomes operational.
This is designed to ensure everyone can access healthcare services regardless of their income. Salaried persons on the other hand will pay a monthly statutory deduction of 2.75 percent of their gross earnings.
While the goal of universal coverage is noble, we worry about the financial implications of these proposals.
Given that the majority of households are classified as poor and are unable to pay premiums, one can see the scale of the burden that the national government and counties will be committing to shoulder.
The funding gap could run into tens of billions of shillings per annum though the Bill has not specified the amount of premiums the vulnerable persons will be expected to pay.
The specifics are expected to be made clear in regulations. Going by the experience of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), the premium burden to be picked by the government will be huge and recurring.
More than eight million people, most of them self-employed, were dropped by NHIF last year after they defaulted on their premiums.
