TimesLIVE reports that trade union Solidarity says it is getting ready for a major court challenge against the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme.

This after the National Assembly approved a bill on Tuesday that will pave the way for the introduction of the universal health insurance scheme. The plan’s critics have argued it would be financially unsustainable and impossible to implement effectively. Solidarity said on Wednesday that it had instructed its legal team to start preparing for a court case. “We realised from the outset the NHI would probably be tested in court. The government’s plans to capture healthcare are unaffordable and unimplementable,” Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann indicated. He advised that the Solidarity Research Institute (SRI) had undertaken comprehensive research in the medical sector, which showed that the adoption and implementation of NHI would lead to a huge exodus of medical professionals from SA. “The government has already failed with the public healthcare system and it now wants to fail on an even bigger scale. It has a history of failure when it comes to state enterprises, and there is no reason to believe the proposed NHI would not be to the serious detriment of South Africans.” Hermann commented

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Shonisani Tshikalange at BusinessLive

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