Aaron Motsoaledi’s NHI roadshow raises eyebrows

Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s announcement of a roadshow to consult stakeholders on National Health Insurance (NHI) has met with scepticism from organised business, the DA and trade union Solidarity.

The minister made the announcement after the ANC’s national executive committee lekgotla ended on Tuesday, suggesting he was opening the door to fresh consultation on the party’s controversial plan for achieving universal health coverage even as the government moves to implement it.

His spokesperson, Foster Mohale, said that the roadshow started with a meeting with doctors in KwaZulu-Natal at the weekend. Further details had to be worked out.

President Cyril Ramaphosa assented to the NHI Act in May, but none of its sections have been promulgated yet.

Business Unity SA (Busa) CEO Cas Coovadia said the organisation was willing to engage with the government on NHI, but did not consider a roadshow the right way to do it.

Busa lobbied for changes to the NHI Bill when it was before parliament, and petitioned the president not to sign it into law. It said the bill was unconstitutional and unaffordable, and would damage healthcare and investor confidence. Busa indicated previously that it was considering legal action.

“While we have indicated that we will look at going to court to contest the constitutionality of the act, we are still committed to engaging if such engagement is structured and if the engagement is serious.

“A roadshow is not engagement: engagement is sitting down and looking at what the issues are in the act, whether we can reach agreement on those and how we can move forward,” said Coovadia.

Busa would like the president to send the act back to parliament for amendments, he said.

The act already faces two legal challenges, one from Solidarity and the other from the Board of Healthcare Funders, which represents medical schemes and administrators.

The DA, which is opposed to NHI, said Motsoaledi’s roadshow was a talk shop aimed at charming or strong-arming stakeholders into supporting NHI.

“Both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces held public participation processes. None of the inputs were ever seriously engaged with and were simply ignored,” said the DA’s health spokesperson, Michele Clark.

Solidarity economics researcher Theuns du Buisson expressed doubt about the minister’s roadshow, saying that the trade union’s input on NHI had been largely ignored.

“It’s a bit rich to say there will now be a new consultation process,” he said.

kahnt@businesslive.co.za