Under the NHI, the state will decide on all aspects of healthcare – from the healthcare services to be covered to the fees to be paid to doctors and other providers, the medicines to be prescribed, the blood tests to be allowed, the medical equipment to be used, the new health technologies to be permitted, and the prices to be paid for every item, from aspirins and antiretrovirals (ARVs) to suture. [...] The healthcare services to be provided The NHI Bill is largely silent on the benefi ts the system will provide, saying these will be decided by the relevant committee in the light of ‘the potential funds’ available. [...] The ANC’s vendetta against private healthcare The main purpose of the NHI is not to improve health services but rather to drive the private sector out of the healthcare sphere. [...] Says Dr Motsoaledi: ‘The essence of NHI, which must start now, even within the pre- sent medical aid schemes, is that the rich must subsidise the poor, the young must sub- sidise the old, and the healthy must subsidise the sick.’ The proposed rules will encourage many low-income households to join ‘open’ medi- cal schemes (those available to everyone and not restricted to employer groups). [...] The real aim of the NHI is to help advance the NDR by dislodging business from a key sphere of market-based provision, effectively nationalising private healthcare resources, building dependency on the state, and establishing the principle that private spending must be pooled with public revenues for the benefi t of those in need.
- Pages
- 10
- Published in
- Johannesburg, South Africa
