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A flawed AI system is driving up medical costs for Kenya’s poorest families

Oscar Omondi / Unsplash

Kenya was promising wider access to more affordable healthcare. But a new investigation has revealed that its algorithm-driven system is making life harder for the people it was supposed to help most. According to reporting by The Guardian , Africa Uncensored , and Lighthouse Reports , Kenya’s new Social Health Authority system is using a predictive machine-learning algorithm to estimate how much people should pay for public health insurance.

The system was first launched back in October 2024 as part of President William Ruto’s promise to expand healthcare access to Kenya’s large informal workforce.

How the algorithm is hurting Kenyans

A nurse attends to a young patient while a guardian looks on in a hospital ward. Speak Media Uganda / Pexels

The problem is how the system calculates what people can afford.…