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{
"id": 1129296,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1129296/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Zani",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13119,
"legal_name": "Agnes Zani",
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"content": "Health is critical and we know that inequality in health creates a problem. We know you have to pay for most of the health facilities. This introduces an insurance fund that is going to help people to pay. Indeed, this Bill also touches on private insurance and indicates, where possible, additional money will be paid. Therefore, this amendment Bill must be read together with the NHIF Act 9 of 1998 and, of course, that is 1998. So, we know that with the Constitution 2010, certain specific provisions have changed overtime. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in various components of the Bill, what is getting done is just aligning. For example, we are saying ‘Cabinet Secretary,’ so that we align in terms of the definitions that had been put here and there. We are aligning it in terms of using more appropriate words. We are aligning by introducing, for example, national and county responsibilities very specifically. There are certain very key amendments that are done in this amendment Bill. One of them is that it adjusts the board membership. In the initial Act we have ten positions. In this particular Act we have nine. One of the positions that have gone, at the end there, is one that had been given for example, to religious leaders, who were required to bring on fore somebody. That has been removed. I do not know what the argument behind it might have been, but probably one must have been that maybe they needed to streamline this board, so that it has nine members. This is because most of the time, these boards need to be of an odd number so that incase of voting that can be taken into consideration. Another thing that this Amendment Bill does is that it introduces a corporation secretary. This is very key because this corporation secretary, apart from just the CEO, is given key responsibilities. Another thing it does is that it advocates additional voluntary contribution, at Clause 18, so that apart from what is deducted, for example, what a fund contributor is given, you can have a special or voluntary contribution that can be put into place. It does a very important thing at Clause 25. It creates a centralized health care provider system, which will be able to be like a software that both the users and contributors can actually see information in real-time; how much has been used et cetera . Some of the amendments in this Bill move from the traditional card holder. We are talking about not just a card holder, but coming up with more technology and other systems that will allow for identification, for example, of the contributors. It also streamlines private health insurance covers to ensure that what has been promised by that particular insurance cover is actually upheld. This is another big improvement towards enabling contributions and legislation to streamline something that is very key. Right form the description, when you look at the original Act 1998, it just says “to establish National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and provide mechanisms for the contributions to and payments of benefit.” This is an addition. The old version just simply says “management fund,” but the new version introduces to provide for mechanisms of contributions to and payment of benefits out of the fund. Therefore, this Bill is anchored in itself to address the whole issue of benefits, payment and repayments and how that can be done. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}