Factors influencing sustainability of remitances to National Hospital Insurance Fund by workers in informal sector in Bomet Central Division, Bomet County, Kenya

Abstract

This research study does address issues that informal workers face when contributing to NHIF funds. NHIF is Kenya's largest financier of health services. It was a statutory social insurance fund whose responsibility was to provide health insurance coverage for its members and their dependants. The purpose of the study was to establish factors contributing to sustainability of informal workers remittance towards NHIF.

The study was guided by the following objectives; To investigate how Background factors; Socio-cultural factors; sensitization levels; and health insurance legislation factors influence the sustain ability of informal workers remittance to NHIF in Bornet Central Division. The sample size is 132 respondents from the informal workers within Bomet Central Division. Stratified random sampling was used to select respondents from the divisional diverse surroundings.

A descriptive research survey design was adopted and questionnaires were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data to answer the research questions. Data collected for the study was reviewed and cleaned at collection point and every evening prior to entry into an MS Access data base in order to minimize errors of omission and commission. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 12.0.1 was used to analyze the data in order to give descriptive statistics and presented in tables in the form of frequencies and percentages on how the various variables influenced the sustain ability of informal workers contribution to NHIF', report and recommendations was done.

The study recommends NHIF to contract community based organizations to recruit and collect contributions on behalf of NHIF. A multi prolonged awareness creation strategy would go a long way to ensure a well informed community with respect to health insurance. Further research is suggested on challenges facing the implementation of the legislation to increase the NHIF contribution rate, the impact of computer based information system in the management of NHIF operations and the management of funds contributed by the informal sector.