In this article, the authors critically examined the financial potential of informal sector entities, assessing their ability to prepay for health care and influence decisions regarding the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) financing approaches in Kenya. Data were collected using standardized questionnaire on topics including; nature and sustainability of informal sector entities, indicators of financial potential and socioeconomic status. The findings indicated that income in the informal sector is generally low, with mean monthly incomes ranging from 16.7 USD (lowest) to 786.5 USD (highest). For most low and middle income countries, the informal sector makes up the majority of the economy. For social protection schemes where a percentage amount is expected from the beneficiary to be enrolled, the majority of informal sector workers are at risk of being left out, among the main reasons as shown in this study is their inability to pay due to low levels of income. This means that to ensure universal access to social health protection and attain UHC, governments need to provide some mechanisms of subsiding this group of workers.
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