While the Democratic Alliance (DA) has not been given the position of Minister of Health, it should still leverage any power or influence it can to stop the ill-fated National Health Insurance (NHI) in its tracks.
NHI has been touted as a silver bullet to fix South Africa’s disastrous public healthcare system by turning the government into a single, universal healthcare payer. But supporters of NHI have failed again and again to reasonably show how the system will be paid for or how it will actually work. NHI is unfeasible financially, placing a huge cost on an already overburdened tax base. Additional taxes will not work. There simply is not enough money in the country.
The current public healthcare system is rotten with corruption, mismanagement and apathy. Giving this ailing system more money will not help matters. The institution is broken and needs a complete overhaul. Yet, the government wants to force all patients under a single system. If NHI is implemented fully, our entire healthcare system is likely to come to reflect our worst public hospitals.
NHI will become a blackhole where taxpayers’ money disappears to fund an ineffective system. Just look at other government enterprises. Eskom flung SA into darkness for years. Transnet is collapsing. Whatever the government controls soon becomes infested with criminals and looting.
On top of that, the government should be celebrating users of private healthcare. Not only do private healthcare users not use public health resources, they also pay tax, and fund businesses that also pay tax. The SA economy profits from our vibrant private healthcare sector and the government wants to destroy not just an essential aspect of our healthcare infrastructure, but a source of tax revenue.
The NHI fund has very little do with actually helping the poor access healthcare, and much more to do with putting a lot of money in one place so that corrupt politicians can loot it. Something that has happened to all departments of government, in municipalities and even pension funds.
Doctors have been leaving South Africa for greener pastures, and the South African Medical Association (SAMA), Solidarity Doctors Network (SDN) and Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) have all condemned NHI for chasing away much needed medical practitioners. Doctors don’t want NHI. Business doesn’t want NHI. Patients who understand what NHI entails don’t want NHI.
Rather than embracing NHI, South Africa should be moving towards increased privatisation of the healthcare sector. There should be an influx of new private medical colleges, hospitals and clinics to provide for the shortfall that the public sector is unable to fulfil. Rather than raise the public healthcare budget, it should be used to subsidise a private healthcare sector that can then provide cheap and effective treatment to patients throughout the country.
The DA will win a lot of support, and save the country from a terrible policy, if it can successfully stop NHI in its tracks. Stopping NHI should become one of its non-negotiable positions. While the ANC has been playing unfairly and not acting in good faith, the DA may be able to manoeuvre itself to shutdown NHI by threatening to walk away from the GNU. Something it should likely do regardless, as all of its demands have been shutdown.
Hopefully, NHI does not come to fruition. Because if it does, I am not sure out healthcare sector will survive.
