Low income earners will starting July pay Sh300 instead of the existing Sh500 to the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), President William Ruto has announced.
President Ruto said on Monday during the Labor Day fete at Uhuru Gardens in Nairobi that there will now be an equitable base.
“Yule ambaye mlikuwa mnalipa kwa NHIF Sh500 sasa tutateremsha chini ikuje Sh300… Na mimi ambaye ni rais nimekuwa nikilipa Ksh1,000 sasa mimi nitalipa Ksh27,500,” Dr Ruto said.
“Everyone one of us is going to contribute 2.7 percent of their earning to NHIF so that we can carry this load of health equally.”
Read: New NHIF Regulations to be Implemented by End of Year
President Ruto reaffirmed his commitment to provide improved healthcare to Kenyans and pointed out that many fall into poverty due to high medical expenses, thus the insurance will significantly help to reverse the trend.
At the same time, the head of state said that the government will launch a volunteer program with the goal of recruiting 100,000 community health promoters to help provide medical care to Kenyans at the bottom of the pyramid.
“In every 100 families will have one community health promoter whereby in every month they will visit every family and we will give them equipments to check pressure, weight to deal with diseases at early stages,” he said.
“We will agree with them on how we will remunerate these health promoters. And we will share 50-50. Every county that contributes whatever money we will match it.”
Read Also: Private Hospitals Threaten To Deny NHIF Patients Services From Next Week
The President also defended the push to review National Social Security Fund (NSSF) deductions upwards.
“We must make sure that after working for 40/50/60 years, we retire in dignity. Why should the Kenyan worker retire into poverty? The reason why I was pushing to change the contribution structure of NSSF is to ensure our workers retire in dignity,” the President said.
He added: “In the last two months after the implementation of the NSSF Act 45 of 2013, NSSF collections increased from Kshs 1.2B to Kshs 2.5B in February 2023 and Kshs 3.5B March 2023. In the next four months it will be ksh6.5b monthly, money that will be available for our workers upon retirement.”
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