Uproar as RUTO’s government forcefully moves millions of Kenyans from NHIF to SHIF without their consent

Thursday, October 3, 2024 - Kenyans are up in arms after President William Ruto’s government moved millions of National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) members to the newly introduced Social Health Authority (SHA) without their consent.

The controversial move comes as Acting SHA CEO Elijah Wachira openly admitted to the botched rollout, citing that claims processing had stalled due to biometric failures, leaving patients in limbo.

The shock announcement followed an earlier declaration by Harry Kimtai, Principal Secretary of the State Department for Medical Services, who revealed that the government planned to migrate 9 million verified NHIF members to SHA.

He explained that, out of the 12 million NHIF members, only 9 million had verifiable documentation, leaving a staggering 3 million members excluded.

Initially, the government had assured NHIF members that they must opt-in and register for the SHA scheme.

However, this promise was abruptly overturned, with millions of Kenyans finding themselves automatically enrolled in SHA without their explicit consent.

This sudden shift sparked widespread outrage across social media, with many Kenyans receiving SMS notifications that their NHIF accounts had been successfully migrated to SHA.

"Your NHIF account has been migrated successfully to Social Health Authority. To update your profile, dial *147# or visit sha.go.ke," the SMS read.

However, this did not go down well with Kenyans who took to social media to vent.

“This is a violation of several laws,” X user shared.

 “When did I authorize this? This is unacceptable,” Another user retorted.

The Kenyan DAILY POST