Overburdened Kenyans will have another tax loaded on their salary.
In what is billed as the most radical surgery in Kenya's health services since independence, the 57-year-old National Health Insurance Fund will be abolished.
Salaried individuals will then be forced to pay 2.75 per cent of their gross salary to fund a new agency known as the Social Health Authority. The unemployed will pay Sh300 a month.
The authority will comprise of Primary Health Care Fund, the Social Health Insurance Fund and the Emergency and Critical Illness Fund.
The total health kitty is estimated at the tune of Sh500 billion annually.
The right to health is a fundamental human right guaranteed in the Constitution and any move that will ensure this is welcome.
This has however not been the case as many Kenyans still cannot access basic health services.
Public health facilities are ill-equipped, lack key personnel and medicine is often out of stock.
The National Health Insurance Fund has over the years been laden with political appointees whose main assignment has been to source for tenders and deals for their masters.
Many are therefore pessimistic about whether the overhaul will bring any meaningful changes despite the high amounts they are now expected to pay.
The Ruto regime must therefore go flat out to ensure that Kenyans receive value for money in the new health reforms.
After all, they say a healthy nation is a wealthy nation.
Quote of the Day: “We only think when we are confronted with problems.”
John Dewey
The American education reformer and philosopher was born October 20, 1859
