Little changed in Treasury’s contentious new rules for health insurance
The Treasury has published a third draft of its controversial demarcation regulations, which seek to protect consumers by imposing new rules for health insurance products like gap cover and hospital cash plans. On Friday it tabled draft regulations to the Short and Long Term Insurance Act in Parliament, proposing tight limits on the kind of health insurance products that can be sold and how they may be marketed. Primary healthcare insurance products that offer a limited number of doctor and dentist visits, which the Treasury considers to be doing the business of a medical scheme, are to be phased out. Sellers of these products have a two-year grace period, while the Council for Medical Schemes devises a framework for low-cost medical schemes that cover these benefits. The Treasury is proposing the regulations come into effect on April 1 2017. Companies will be allowed to continue to sell gap cover products to people who have medical scheme cover, as well as hospital cash plans — pro...
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