A wing and a prayer
Why Motsoaledi’s health insurance plan seems set to fail
It's taken four years to produce, but the White Paper on National Health Insurance fails to say how SA's ailing health system is to be cured
Government’s National Health Insurance plan (NHI), which has the noble ambition of extending affordable, quality treatment to all, is based on the most dramatic overhaul of the SA health-care system since the ANC came to power in 1994. But how and when it will come to fruition remains an open question, with gaping holes in the policy framework and implementation strategy. The vision, outlined in the White Paper on NHI, is of a health-care system based on the principle of social solidarity in which everyone contributes to a funding pool according to their means. Clinics and hospitals will provide free care to the ill, and a centrally administered NHI fund will buy services from accredited public and private sector providers. The White Paper was released by health minister Aaron Motsoaledi in December. The problem is that it fails to take a position on any of the tough issues. It does not spell out what benefits patients will get; what they will cost; where the money will come from; o...
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