By Nura Kabale
Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kairuki has announced an ambitious plan to register close to 8.5 million Kenyans to the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) this year. Kariuki said that the Ministry has initiated a rigorous exercise to register all Kenyans under the state social health insurance platform by 2020.
Latest figures from NHIF show that there are only 7.5 million subscribers with 16.5 million beneficiaries. The plan by the Ministry is to register another 25 Million Kenyans with NHIF in the next one year and continue to raise the numbers to 40 million by 2020.
“We would like to relook the infrastructure and dedicate our efforts from raising the number of those insured by NHIF from 16.5 million Kenyans to 25 million in the next 12 months,” she said.
However the latest data on penetration of health services in the country has raised questions on the viability of the government’s plan to have every Kenyan insured under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme. There are only one out of three Kenyans aged 18 and above who have an insurance according the NHIF data.
NHIF Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Mwangi said that the social health insurer has already laid down plans to increase their brand visibility by using agents like their private competitors to supplement their already existing 63 service points and 30 satellite centers.
Other measures the Ministry and NHIF rely on for the success of the UHC is the government’s strategy to increase budget allocation to health to almost Sh80 billion by 2022 as it runs on a deficit of Sh88 billion on matters UHC.
