BusinessLive reports that the plan by the Council for Medical Scheme (CSM) to consolidate or dissolve small medical schemes posed huge risks to the people who belonged to them and might force some to drop their cover entirely, industry sources warned this week.  

They also predicted that the move was likely to be met with legal and constitutional challenges.  More than 228,000 people belonged to 31 medical schemes that had less than 6,000 members at the end of December 2015.  All but three of them were restricted employer groups, and all were in sound financial health.  Restricted employer group schemes generally subsidise members on low incomes, including pensioners, enabling them to buy cover they could not afford on the open market.  The decision to consolidate the industry is in line with the government’s White Paper on National Health Insurance (NHI), published in June.  Consolidation of the industry was necessary because fragmented risk pools were expensive, and limited the scope for cross-subsidisation, explained CMS acting registrar Sipho Kabane.

• Read this report by Tamar Kahn in full at BusinessLive

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