Teachers divided over medical scheme deal

General Secretary, trade unions congress of Kenya, Wilson Sossion gestures during a press briefing at the organizations office in Nairobi. He affirmed that in the spirit of brotherhood, they had embraced the hand of friendship and for once, they will share a joint platform and celebrate the international day of workers-the Labour Day together with the central organization of trade unions (COTU) at Uhuru Park. [PHOTO/Mbugua Kibera/STANDARD]

Debate is raging among the country’s 280,000 teachers over their medical scheme after The Standard published rival offers from National Health Insurance Fund and a private insurer.

On Friday, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) signed Sh5.9 billion deal with AoN Insurance to provide medical cover to teachers, but uncertainty still reigns as teachers question whether they are really getting value for their money compared to the NHIF offer.

Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) has opposed the deal with the private insurer. Kuppet officials said they have never backed the AoN cover, saying the private insurer has provided only sketchy details about its benefits. They accused Knut of pushing the deal. “Kuppet has written a demand letter to TSC to suspend AoN, whose details are scanty. The truth is that AoN never wanted to openly demonstrate their details,” said a statement from the union’s Secretary General Akello Misori.

Last week, The Standard exclusively revealed the benefits offered by both AoN Insurance and NHIF,  thereby sparking robust debate among teachers on which is the better deal.

In inpatient segment, NHIF offers unlimited cover between job groups G and M compared to the one offered by Aon Kenya Insurance Brokers Ltd of between Sh350,000 to Sh750,000. In addition, those in job groups between N and R were being offered between Sh1.1 million and Sh2 million inpatient cover by NHIF compared to Sh750,000 and Sh1 million offered by AoN. In outpatient cover, NHIF had offered teachers unlimited benefits between job groups G and M compared to the AoN one, which was based on capitation.

 MORE BENEFITS

NHIF’s Chief Executive Officer Simeon ole Kirgotty and Board Chair Mohammud Ali insist that NHIF medical scheme for civil servants will offer more benefits to teachers if they sign up to it at a fraction of the cost being offered to AoN.

But Kenya National Union of Teacher Secretary General Wilson Sossion is on record saying that the AoN medical scheme is superior to that of NHIF and was competitively sought and carefully negotiated.

A snapshot of the debate captured in the social media page of one of the teachers’ trade union showed that the tutors are divided on which of the two schemes is better.

“Just seen the two offers by NHIF and TSC and I find the NHIF deal better because they deduct their dues and leave us with part of our medical allowance unlike the TSC deal which takes away the whole medical allowance,” said a teacher.

“I welcome NHIF cover since it is fair and does not collapse our medical allowance completely. Colleagues, let us adopt the deal,” said Joshua Masheti.