Will NHI and new medical aid bills fly?
Under political pressure to finally deliver quality universal health care after nearly a decade as health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi last week released two bills meant to provide the platform for such an ambitious plan. However, those bills critically fail to provide a blueprint for the central issue: how to fund this national health insurance. It’s a blind spot that could cause his grand plan to crash
Aaron Motsoaledi, a medical doctor and one of the few cabinet ministers to have survived the Zuma years, is clearly under immense pressure. As the man tasked with delivering the ANC’s promise of universal health care, he struck a discernibly populist tone last week when, with much fanfare, he published draft legislation which paves the way for National Health Insurance (NHI). "It will not be an exaggeration to say that the NHI is the ‘land question’ of health," he told politicians two days before releasing the bills. "Every citizen‚ to reach their potential in all other aspects of their life‚ needs good-quality‚ equitable health care‚ regardless of who they are. To achieve this‚ equitable and fair financing of health is [necessary]." The NHI, he vowed, would usher in a "new order" in which a person’s access to health would no longer be contingent on their income. As part of this, sweeping changes were also in the offing to provide much-needed financial relief for medical scheme memb...
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