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The Sh260B question: A nation one diagnosis away from bankruptcy

A single illness could wipe out a lifetime of savings for Kenyan families. [File, standard]

There is a quiet fear that lives in Kenyan homes. It lingers behind every cough, every sudden fever, every late-night emergency. It is the fear that one illness will erase a lifetime of effort. For millions of families, that fear is no longer hypothetical. It is real. It is immediate. It is devastating.

We were told that the new health financing system would protect us. We were told it was efficient, digital, foolproof and tamper-proof. We were told that Universal Health Coverage (UHC) was not a slogan but a guarantee. Yet today, when a mother rushes her child to the hospital and is told “the system is down”, what she hears is something far more chilling: you are on your own.

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