Today's Labour News

BL Premium reports that the National Assembly has approved the controversial National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, taking the government one step closer to its plans for achieving universal health coverage.

The Bill still needs to be considered by the National Council of Provinces, but it not expected to make material changes to the bill before submitting it to the President for assent. The Bill is the first piece of enabling legislation for NHI and proposes sweeping reforms to realise the ANC’s ambitions of providing all eligible patients with healthcare services that are free at the point of delivery. It envisages a central NHI fund that will pool resources to purchase healthcare services on behalf of the population from accredited public and private healthcare providers, with a sharply reduced role for medical schemes. It has faced a barrage of criticism from the private sector, with warnings sounded by Business Leadership SA, the Board of Healthcare Funders, the Health Funders Association and SA’s biggest medical scheme administrator Discovery Health. Concerns were also raised by civil society organisations, patient advocacy groups and parliament’s legal advisers, who warned it was unconstitutional and open to legal challenge. Health minister Joe Phaahla said the government was determined to implement NHI, and it would defend the reforms all the way to the Constitutional Court. One of the bill’s most contentious aspects is its provisions on medical schemes, which when NHI is fully implemented will only be permitted to provide “complementary” cover for services not covered by the fund.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tamar Kahn at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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