The Social Health Insurance Fund: A Grand Comedy Of Errors Played Out At Kenyans’ Expense, Experts Warn

The Kenyan government, in its usual magnanimous wisdom, has once again pulled the wool over our collective eyes with the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF). With promises of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) ringing through the air like the soothing sound of a funeral dirge, we are told that SHIF is the magic bullet that will cure our health woes. But like everything else in Kenya, the only thing this scheme will achieve is leaving citizens gasping for breath—literally and financially.

The brilliance of SHIF lies in its simplicity. The government proposes to take your hard-earned money through mandatory deductions, claiming it will transform our decrepit healthcare system into a utopia where every ailment, from a toothache to a C-section, will be treated with top-tier efficiency. But what are we really paying for? Sh300 for screening and consultation? A whole Sh1,200 for treating gingivitis? Wow, such generosity! I mean, what more could a person ask for when their gums are bleeding? Perhaps a miracle!

The SHIF’s pièce de résistance, however, comes in the form of maternity care. The scheme proudly allocates Sh11,200 for normal deliveries and Sh32,600 for C-sections. Anyone who has ever had the privilege of delivering a baby in Kenya knows that these numbers are a farce. At Kenyatta National Hospital, a C-section will cost you anywhere from Sh100,000 to Sh150,000. The private hospitals? Oh, just a cool Sh500,000. Yet here we are, being told that Sh32,600 will somehow cover these costs. Maybe the government has discovered a secret birthing technique that drastically reduces expenses, but they’ve chosen to keep it hidden from us.

Dental services? Ah yes, the government will kindly give us Sh2,000 to cover all dental care per household. That’s right, *per household*. So if your entire family has cavities, good luck splitting that Sh2,000 across everyone. Maybe they can perform dental surgery in shifts, one tooth at a time, year by year. Allocations for major procedures like root canals, extractions, and the like are laughable. Sh650 for a tooth extraction? Even back-alley dentists charge more than that. Clearly, SHIF is setting new records for optimism—or is it delusion?

Read Also: The Rot of SHIF and SHA: A National Scandal In The Making

One might think the government is out of touch, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. They are acutely aware of the costs of healthcare—it’s just that they don’t care. The Sh935 allocated for the dispensing of eyeglasses is a perfect example. Any optician worth their salt will tell you that Sh935 doesn’t even cover half the cost of basic spectacles. But hey, maybe the government has struck a deal with optical shops to give us a ‘national discount’!

Then there’s the Sh3,500 for chemotherapy. If you’re lucky enough to receive a cancer diagnosis in Kenya and get treatment at a public hospital, you’ll know that chemotherapy costs can go up to hundreds of thousands per session. So this Sh3,500 allocation is the equivalent of a handshake for cancer patients—a token of goodwill that does nothing to ease their suffering.

But here’s the kicker: the real tragedy isn’t in the insultingly low allocations—it’s in the deductions. The government, ever the comedic troupe, plans to deduct up to 2.75% of your salary for this grand experiment. That’s right, whether you use the service or not, whether it benefits you or not, the deductions will come. And the best part? These deductions don’t tally with the services being offered. For a scheme designed to pool resources, it feels more like a black hole that swallows your money with zero return.

And the cherry on top? The healthcare providers are equally in the dark. Private healthcare practitioners, who handle the majority of non-state health services, are being forced to play a guessing game. Will they be reimbursed? Will they even get contracts? Nobody knows, but the government will keep deducting those SHIF payments regardless.

In the end, SHIF is not about health or coverage; it’s about control. Control over the hard-earned money of Kenyans, control over how much care we receive, and ultimately, control over who lives and who dies. The new social health insurance scheme is less a healthcare solution and more a lesson in how to run a country into the ground, one deduction at a time.

So, what’s the grand takeaway? The SHIF scheme, wrapped in the language of Universal Health Coverage, is a joke. It promises to deliver on something it fundamentally cannot: affordable, quality healthcare for all. In reality, it will leave Kenyans worse off, burdened by unsustainable deductions, underwhelming benefits, and a healthcare system that remains as broken as ever.

Therefore, SHIF is not about making healthcare accessible. It’s about making healthcare the punchline of the government’s latest joke. Unfortunately, the cost of this joke is our lives and livelihoods.

Read Also: Rejecting SHIF and SHA: Why Kenyans Are Being Forced Turn to Private Insurance for Their Healthcare Needs