SHA overcharges the poorest and undercharges the richest

A thorough investigation into the claim that the Social Health Authority (SHA) overcharges the poorest Kenyans while undercharging the richest reveals a systemic flaw rooted in its AI-driven premium calculation. The collaborative investigative series, titled "Error by Design," produced by Joy Kirigia, Purity Mukami, and Gabriel Geiger in conjunction with Africa Uncensored, Lighthouse Reports, and The Guardian, provides compelling evidence to substantiate this assertion. Their findings indicate that the SHA’s AI algorithm, intended to determine health insurance premiums, disproportionately penalizes lower-income individuals by misinterpreting their living conditions and lifestyle as indicators of higher earning capacity. Conversely, the system is shown to inaccurately assess the financial standing of wealthier individuals, leading to reduced premiums for them. The core of the problem, as detailed in articles like "Hiding Behind AI: How SHA Was Used to Load Health System Costs Onto Poorest" by Purity Mukami, Joy Kirigia, Gabriel Geiger, Tomas Statius, and Naipanoi Lepapa, lies in the AI system's inherent bias in predicting income. This previously unseen report, unearthed by the investigation, explicitly states that the SHA's AI was "guaranteed to overestimate the earnings of the poorest and underestimate the earnings of the richest