HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEMES FINANCING AND THE HEALTHCARE INSURANCE UPTAKE IN KENYA
Abstract
This study intends to establish the effects of various forms of health insurance schemes financing on health insurance uptake in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study included; to establish the effect of direct private health insurance schemes finance, to determine the effect of employment-based health insurance schemes finance and to establish the effect of social health insurance scheme financing on health insurance uptake in Kenya. The study sort to investigate the moderating effect of government policy on the relationship between health insurance scheme financing and health insurance uptake in Kenya. The study was underpinned by Moral Hazard Theory, Information Asymmetry Theory, Purchase Behaviour Theory and Expected Utility Theory. This study used descriptive research design. The target population comprised of 23 insurance companies that provide health insurance schemes and the national health insurance fund. Due to the small number of target population, census technique was used. The study applied longitudinal research design. Autoregressive Distributed Lag model was adopted and used secondary time series data spanning from 1980 to 2023. Secondary data was obtained from certified financial statements of the health insurance companies. Descriptive statistics focused on frequency distributions, measures of central tendencies and variability. The inferential statistics included correlation results, Autoregressive Distributed Lag outcome, t-tests, f-test and test of hypotheses. Data presentation used textual, tabular, graphical and charts. The findings have established that direct health insurance scheme financing has a positive and significant effect on health insurance uptake in Kenya. The results showed that employment based health insurance scheme financing had no effect on health insurance uptake in Kenya both in the short term and in the long run. Social health insurance scheme financing was found to have a positive and significant effect on health insurance uptake in Kenya. Government policy had moderating effect on the relationship between health insurance schemes and health insurance uptake in Kenya. The study has recommended that the government should put proper system to increase direct private health insurance scheme financing. The government should also institute policy to consolidate different health insurance scheme financing with different premiums for effectiveness and equity.
Key Words: Direct Private Health Insurance Schemes, Employment-Based Health Insurance Schemes, Social Health Insurance Scheme, Government Policy
CITATION: Kariuki, N. W. & Koori, J. (2025) Health insurance schemes financing and the healthcare insurance uptake in Kenya. The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management, 12 (1), 134 – 147. http://dx.doi.org/10.61426/sjbcm.v12i1.3177
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.61426/sjbcm.v12i1.3177
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