BL Premium reports that Business Unity SA (Busa) is lobbying the government to allow medical schemes to continue operating under National Health Insurance NHI, arguing this will ensure the private healthcare sector remains viable and reduce the load on public health facilities.

The organisation made its case at SA’s second presidential health summit, a high-level meeting aimed at improving care provided to patients across the spectrum. The two-day closed meeting focused on NHI, the government’s proposed reforms for achieving universal health coverage. The NHI Bill now before parliament would provide for the establishment of a central NHI fund that will pay for healthcare services procured from the public and private sector, and would limit the role of medical schemes. “What we are proposing is some flexibility to section 33 of the NHI bill, to enable a multipayer, multiprovider system,” Busa’s Stavros Nicolaou explained. Section 33 of the Bill says that once NHI is fully implemented, medical schemes may provide only complementary cover for services not covered by the fund. Busa acknowledged there were problems with the private healthcare sector. It supported reforms to widen medical scheme membership to employed people who could not afford cover, which could be achieved with the low-cost benefit option framework being developed by the Council for Medical Schemes. This had the potential to reduce the burden on public health facilities, which were struggling to provide services in the face of a growing population, an increasing burden of disease and budget cuts, Busa said.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tamar Kahn at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
• Read too, Busa affirms support for an NHI backed by public/private collaboration, at Engineering News

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