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BL Premium reports that parliament’s portfolio committee on health has adopted its amendments to the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, marking a milestone in the ANC-led government’s plans for achieving universal health coverage.
The committee made only minor changes to the bill, prompting a warning from SA’s biggest medical scheme administrator, Discovery Health, that the legislation would be open to constitutional challenge, and eliciting an immediate threat of legal action from trade union Solidarity. The ANC-dominated committee has been considering the bill for the past four years, and has made no substantive amendments despite concerns raised by parliament’s legal advisers, issues raised by opposition parties and input received from stakeholders ranging from private healthcare providers to patient advocacy groups. While the government has said it intends the fund to be based on social solidarity principles, with the rich and healthy subsidising the poor and the sick, it has yet to indicate how it will be financed. Discovery Health does not support the single funder model proposed by the bill, nor its restriction on medical schemes to only offer cover for services not included under NHI. Solidarity said it would take the government to court if the bill were accepted. “In the run-up to next year’s election, and in order to canvass cheap votes, the ANC government insists on pushing through this law while they are fully aware that their own system cannot support it,” Solidarity’s Peirru Marx stated. The department of health’s deputy director-general for NHI, Nicholas Crisp, said the government was ready to defend the legislation.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tamar Kahn at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
- Read Solidarity’s press statement on this matter at Politicsweb
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page