Nhif to be mandatory

[RV Pundit]

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It's of one my recommendation..to fix Kenya

[Kadudu]

Who will pay for those Kenyans without any source of income?
Btw, who will control that everyone is registered and paying his remittances? Does it go with the constituition of Kenya? I hardly doubt.

NHIF is a noble cause no doubt but in the past marred with corruption just like any other Kenyan parastatal with loads of cash. The government should instead go out there and streamline NHIF services and them let it sell to the masses its advantages for all to see. The masses will join on their own accord instead of being forced by the local chiefs as if it were another signature collection for BBI II.

It's of one my recommendation..to fix Kenya

[RV Pundit]

I think poor should pay 100 and rich more..it cannot be equal ..but everyone deserves medical care like Obamacare

[Arcadian_Dreamer]

Another kitty fund for majambazis-in-suits to dip into, woe unto the poor kenyan taxpayer.

[KenyanPlato]

Another kitty fund for majambazis-in-suits to dip into, woe unto the poor kenyan taxpayer.

It is unworkable thing. Everywhere you look in Kenya the solution to any problem is more tax. Kenyans must be the most taxed Africans. The taxpayer is the only game in town. Medicine is about wealth. For a poor country like Kenya we have to make a decision on what is the cost benefit of treating one patient with cancer with millions that they cannot afford or using that money to save lives of 100s of other productive Kenyans. It is a situation where by if you draw a genetic bad card such as cancer you die. We cannot all live for ever.

[RV Pundit]

Obamacare works for all American - Poor and Rich. NHIF cover is good for poor people. The rich have to subsidize. And because the poor are also stupid we have to force them to take NHIF - otherwise they will remain forever in poverty - because majority - are on sickness from that perpetual poverty circle.

NHIF will not pay for expensive medical hospital - the normal health insurance will do that - but this will be like the primary cover - and we will eliminate USER-FEES public hospitals charges.

And we will have healthy people - you know majority of poor kenyans do not go to hospital because they don't have money

But NHIF is better than nonsense about universal health care - Universal Health Insurance -  will mean public hospitals have to shape up or ship out - because NHIF will pay for equal cheaper private or mission hospital in kenya.

UHS is total failure because corrupt gov cannot run hospitals.

NHIF is already a huge success... with nearly 10M principal members...meaning in typical household size of 4 in kenya...we already cover 40m.

The problem now is 10m who don't...just about 3m households.

Next is for people to have two insurance..NHIF as primary insurances...for dealing with small issues...and proper medical cover for big items like Cancer.

It is unworkable thing. Everywhere you look in Kenya the solution to any problem is more tax. Kenyans must be the most taxed Africans. The taxpayer is the only game in town. Medicine is about wealth. For a poor country like Kenya we have to make a decision on what is the cost benefit of treating one patient with cancer with millions that they cannot afford or using that money to save lives of 100s of other productive Kenyans. It is a situation where by if you draw a genetic bad card such as cancer you die. We cannot all live for ever.

[KenyanPlato]

Obamacare doesnot work. It is still expensive to have medical cover in US. Medicare which more like nhif is one of the most expensive medical coverage. We all contribute to it and you only qualify for care after 62 years. If you have a terminal illness in usa you will go bankrupt. Most people without employer medical coverage cannot afford insurance.

Do not even try to compare US with kenya.  Kenya needs to lessen the burden on taxpayer and let somethings not be a priority. Universal healthcare is not a priority. If someone cannot afford user fees what makes you think they can afford nhif premiums.

Goverment hospitals have not failed. They still provide mpst of the basic care for majority.

[RV Pundit]

For me compulsory NHIF as primary insurance (Medicare) will work as long as the premium are cheap. Gov should pay for 3m or so household. Kenya has 12m household. If NHIF already has 8-9m principal members. It means gov just need to pay for 3m*500 per month which is very cheap - just 1.5B per month or about 12B per annum.

NHIF will therefore be able to take care of most of basic medical needs with reasonable limits. This is our medicare. This the very basic every kenyan should get.

With NHIF commanding say 1.5B dollars annually - it could cover for most of basic health needs - and it would encourage more investment in primary healthcare. Otherwise striking doctors/nurses/lack of medicine will continue.

The we move to secondary insurance - from your employer - or etc - that could treat more diseases and more limits.

Obamacare doesnot work. It is still expensive to have medical cover in US. Medicare which more like nhif is one of the most expensive medical coverage. We all contribute to it and you only qualify for care after 62 years. If you have a terminal illness in usa you will go bankrupt. Most people without employer medical coverage cannot afford insurance.

Do not even try to compare US with kenya.  Kenya needs to lessen the burden on taxpayer and let somethings not be a priority. Universal healthcare is not a priority. If someone cannot afford user fees what makes you think they can afford nhif premiums.

Goverment hospitals have not failed. They still provide mpst of the basic care for majority.

[gout]

The 6,000 is nothing new. Throwing around these figures and making them mandatory is the easy bit. The hut tax led to peasantry resistance all over. There is need for a holistic approach - for instance how much should go to doctors, drugs, infrastructure? Public versus private health facilities? Administrative costs- will NHIF now open offices in every village? Why the huge administrative costs in times of MPesa?

As corona shows health can easily be managed cheaply given mwafrika young age. Is it even time to go Cuba way in preventive care rather than expensive curative way. Can NHIF surplus be used to supplement school diets from kindergarten?

Can NHIF funds be used to build and equip hospitals as the ones NMS and ufool are doing in Nairobi?
https://www.facebook.com/NairobiMetropolitanSE/posts/249899190022563

[RV Pundit]

The problem I see - counties have failed to run health sector - and at least with NHIF - people will have more options including well run cheap private hospitals and mission hospitals. Once this is also done - counties can get paid by NHIF - if they provide good enough services - so they don't have to suspend half their allocation running hospitals - nobody want to use.

And they can even focus on preventative - aka public health - and leave running of hospitals to be managed by NHIF funds.

Counties should give up on level 4/5 hospitals - to be managed by boards and national gov - and then focus on community nurses - doing Cuban type - wash your hands - enforcing public health in rural towns - and such.

Heck eventually to save cost - NHIF can managed those hospitals - as triage - centers - curb medical insurance fraud. Then counties can do public health - and run dispesnaries.

The 6,000 is nothing new. Throwing around these figures and making them mandatory is the easy bit. The hut tax led to peasantry resistance all over. There is need for a holistic approach - for instance how much should go to doctors, drugs, infrastructure? Public versus private health facilities? Administrative costs- will NHIF now open offices in every village? Why the huge administrative costs in times of MPesa?

As corona shows health can easily be managed cheaply given mwafrika young age. Is it even time to go Cuba way in preventive care rather than expensive curative way. Can NHIF surplus be used to supplement school diets from kindergarten?

Can NHIF funds be used to build and equip hospitals as the ones NMS and ufool are doing in Nairobi?
https://www.facebook.com/NairobiMetropolitanSE/posts/249899190022563

[Arcadian_Dreamer]

It is unworkable thing. Everywhere you look in Kenya the solution to any problem is more tax. Kenyans must be the most taxed Africans. The taxpayer is the only game in town. Medicine is about wealth. For a poor country like Kenya we have to make a decision on what is the cost benefit of treating one patient with cancer with millions that they cannot afford or using that money to save lives of 100s of other productive Kenyans. It is a situation where by if you draw a genetic bad card such as cancer you die. We cannot all live for ever.

It is unsustainable. We are fast approaching the limits of taxation in this country, beyond a certain level all productive activities ceases to exist as it becomes meaningless to produce when it will confiscated from you. Why work hard, innovate, produce? You also encourage a large scale underground black market in response to predatory taxation.

In the US 15% of patients account for 85% of medical costs. That is the model those advocating for NHIF want to import to this country. It will ruin us fiscally.

Obamacare is a big failure, those of us who live here know that.

[KenyanPlato]

It is unworkable thing. Everywhere you look in Kenya the solution to any problem is more tax. Kenyans must be the most taxed Africans. The taxpayer is the only game in town. Medicine is about wealth. For a poor country like Kenya we have to make a decision on what is the cost benefit of treating one patient with cancer with millions that they cannot afford or using that money to save lives of 100s of other productive Kenyans. It is a situation where by if you draw a genetic bad card such as cancer you die. We cannot all live for ever.

It is unsustainable. We are fast approaching the limits of taxation in this country, beyond a certain level all productive activities ceases to exist as it becomes meaningless to produce when it will confiscated from you. Why work hard, innovate, produce? You also encourage a large scale underground black market in response to predatory taxation.

In the US 15% of patients account for 85% of medical costs. That is the model those advocating for NHIF want to import to this country. It will ruin us fiscally.

Obamacare is a big failure, those of us who live here know that.

yap and that 15% spend the last 5 years of their life spending all that money. I did a lot compliance work in Healthcare while in college and after college. I saw crazy stuff. Very unethical nonsense but legal. You would see doctors doing a hip replacement on patients who were over 85 years and were infirm. Those patients never left their bed after surgery. They just lived for a bit and died a very  miserable death. Medicare abuse is so rampant but since all you have to do is provide care and not prove that it is necessary the abuse continues. I would think most private insures would fight to allow such waste and unethical surgery.


Kenya is okay. We cannot live forever. At one point you got die. There is a Bob Marley song that he sings about being dealt a bad card. I will personally would accept my fate if I am dealt a bad card. If you have something like throat cancer, what is the use of getting your tongue removed and feed using a tube? Do you want to be some Zombie existing for the mere need to live? We need to agree that the African way of life is and will always be superior to the White man extremism in Medicine. In Kikuyu of yore once an ailment was determined to be terminal, the family paid the medicine man and he would then symbolically wrap the offering (ram meat) with skin and let the family take their offering back with them home. At that point he had determined there is no need of more treatment. I am actually opposed to this fundraising to take terminally ill people to India. it was a waste of funds and just prolongs suffering.

You have funds like NHIF lying around all the Medical hawks will do is devise ways of eating them.. This is why American Medicine is the worst in the developed world because everyone is in it for money.

[Kadudu]

Have they been given the chance? Health sector is devolved on paper, but MoH run from Nairobi still has more personel and bigger budget than the budget for health in all counties put together. Counties even have problems paying their health workers due to cash constrains caused by delayed payments from the Treasury.
A centralised health system has and will never worked. The issue here is people running the system are not interested in devolution. That is why the biggest financial scandals that have come to light mainly emerge from the centralised health sector MoH or KEMSA as good examples.
As long as corruption is tolerated and encouraged by our top leaders, anything even noble like NHiF will always been seen very sceptical by the general population.

The problem I see - counties have failed to run health sector - and at least with NHIF - people will have more options including well run cheap private hospitals and mission hospitals. Once this is also done - counties can get paid by NHIF - if they provide good enough services - so they don't have to suspend half their allocation running hospitals - nobody want to use.

And they can even focus on preventative - aka public health - and leave running of hospitals to be managed by NHIF funds.

Counties should give up on level 4/5 hospitals - to be managed by boards and national gov - and then focus on community nurses - doing Cuban type - wash your hands - enforcing public health in rural towns - and such.

Heck eventually to save cost - NHIF can managed those hospitals - as triage - centers - curb medical insurance fraud. Then counties can do public health - and run dispesnaries.

[RV Pundit]

NHIF is still better than counties run hospital. The way I see - we are already at 9M out of 12M households. We need a small push to ensure everyone has NHIF. That way everyone has primary health insurance. The middle class can add more insurance options.

Health sector is a mess. Gov run hospital a mess. Counties run hospital a mess. I rather we arm everyone with NHIF so people can go to private and mission hospitals.

Rather than spending billions in medical equipment and other corrupt schemes - spend 15B to ensure the 3m kenyans who don't have NHIF have it. But it has to be done in such a way that those currently paying don't go for free.

So for example all those 1.2M household in various safety nets - orphans, old, disable - should be given NHIF.

That leave us with 1.8M poor people. I know for example most tea farmers have NHIF - it easy to for example use KTDA with 0.5M farmers to give everyone NHIF through it - mandatory deduction.

The poor need to be organized - and Ruto hustler nation is good start - ensure all bodaboda, matatus, etc are in Sacco - and it would be easy to enforce say NHIF for everyone.

What happens to public hospital - they will improve - because public will choose where they go for treatment - NHIF you select hospitals that you like.

Have they been given the chance? Health sector is devolved on paper, but MoH run from Nairobi still has more personel and bigger budget than the budget for health in all counties put together. Counties even have problems paying their health workers due to cash constrains caused by delayed payments from the Treasury.
A centralised health system has and will never worked. The issue here is people running the system are not interested in devolution. That is why the biggest financial scandals that have come to light mainly emerge from the centralised health sector MoH or KEMSA as good examples.
As long as corruption is tolerated and encouraged by our top leaders, anything even noble like NHiF will always been seen very sceptical by the general population.