Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 678845,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/678845/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 279,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "government officials in this country, talking about their scorecard, they will tell you that there is free primary healthcare in Kenya. We know that it is a lie. When you go to Level Four, Five or any other public hospital in this country, there is nothing like free primary healthcare. It could be free because there is no cashier to collect money but the patient will have to go and buy the latex gloves, cotton wool and syringes. How free is that? Yet this Senate every year approves disbursement to counties of money called User Fees Forgone, which is some compensation to counties so that where they will not charge user fees, there is an allocation from the national Government. We disburse User Fees Forgone and yet, our citizens are still being forced to buy items which should have been provided in these hospitals. We need to stand up and speak strongly about this. May be we should advocate for abolishment of this User Fees Forgone. It is not little money. Every county gets some money on User Fees Forgone in addition to the allocation on maternal healthcare. We should demand accountability for that User Fees Forgone. Either, people get all the services free or we stop sending money to counties when they continue to impose non-tariff barriers to citizens. Mr. Temporary Speaker Sir, the NHIF currently covers 90 per cent of the insured population which is only 18 per cent of the insurable population. This means there is a huge gap that still needs to be filled. I was in private practice in insurance. One of the last projects I was doing before I came to this House was establishing a medical insurance division in a financial services group and that entailed a lot of research and visits to find out how best it could be done. For medical insurance practioners, this line of business is toxic and no one wants to touch it, because it is not making money for them. Of the registered insurance companies in this country, there is only one company that is making profits out of medical insurance, because they have got an eco-system where they own hospitals, research facilities and insurance companies. The rest of the insurance companies that just operate as financial services providers are not making money. They are, therefore, not eager because they are not in business for social purposes, the way we are in politics to help people. They are in business to make money. We must create an environment where private players get an incentive to get into medical insurance business. One key area this Senate and Parliament can help to encourage is in promotion of micro insurance. Micro health insurance has gone a long way in economies like India to increase coverage to the poor population beyond the mandatory Government schemes like what we have in the case of NHIF. The problem with micro insurance is the attitude of regulators in the industry. They want to regulate micro insurance the same way they regulate the other property classes of insurance. They tell you that for you to start an insurance company, you need a share capital of several hundreds of millions. A micro insurer sometimes does not have that money. We, therefore, need to look at the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) Act and make sure that we have got provisions that promote micro insurance and that look at it separately from the mainstream insurance classes. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}