Rather than trying to push National Health Insurance (NHI), Cabinet members in the Government of National Unity should move away from the idea, trade union Solidarity said on Friday.
This follows newly-appointed Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi stating on Thursday that he is determined to push ahead and implement the NHI Act, which was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa a fortnight before the May 29 elections.
Solidarity believe the NHI Act to be “impracticable, unnecessary and totally unaffordable”.
“Plans by Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi to introduce the National Health Insurance Plan as a tool to correct inequalities is testimony of his distorted idea of the reality regarding healthcare.
“According to all indications, it will result in disaster for all South Africans, yet Motsoaledi began his return as health minister on another false note, with his statements in which he presented the NHI as an ‘equaliser’.”
However, the fact that South Africa was the most unequal country in the world was the reason the plan would not function at all.
According to Solidarity Research Institute economic researcher Theuns du Boisson: “It will mean that the middle class and the rich – a shrinking group of people – will be further used as the state’s cash cow, without any efforts being made to really lift the poor out of poverty.”
He said such a system could only function in a country where everyone contributed in equal measure, and even then it did not mean it would function very well.
“In terms of the extended definition of unemployment in South Africa, 42.4% of the population will not be able to contribute to the funding of the NHI at all. If it only pertained to inequality in healthcare outcomes, one might have been able to pay attention to the minister. However, this inequality stems from a mixture of poverty and the state’s inability.
“Contrary to what his proposal says, people getting world-class treatment in private hospitals is exactly what we want. We would like to see state hospitals also move in that direction as much as possible, rather than private healthcare being dismantled by the NHI in the name of ‘equal care’.” he said.
Solidarity served court documents on the government on May 24 this year, and the organisation has vowed to fight NHI through the country’s courts.
The Department of Health has maintained – over the past decade, and in the two weeks since Motsoaledi has been back at the helm – that plans to implement NHI are going ahead.