Finally, we have confirmation: even government’s own numbers for National Health Insurance (NHI) just don’t add up.Government’s policy document — four years in the making, and finally gazetted last December — admits there’s a shortage of billions of rand if we want to make it work. Conveniently, that white paper doesn’t say exactly how much NHI will cost, or where the money is expected to come from.Nor do the numbers add up elsewhere: by the department of health’s own calculations, only a third of state hospitals and clinics are functional enough to qualify for NHI, and there too few doctors.These lacunas, pointed out in a raft of scathing responses by the private sector released publicly last week, are yet another blow to health minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s ambitious plan, which dates back to 2011.In a nutshell, the plan is for there to be a single NHI fund to pay for health care for all South Africans. Government blames the private sector for “inequality” of health care.The consequ...
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