Financial Mail and Business Day

NHI doomed and flawed

Regardless of what may happen with embattled health minister Zweli Mkhize, the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) is a doomed, flawed concept.

No matter which minister, panel of bureaucrats, or political party happens to be in charge if NHI ever becomes a reality, the fundamental problem is the assumption that the management of all health care should be in the hands of the state.

The NHI bill makes provision for a board to govern the NHI fund; the board “consists of not more than 11 persons appointed by the minister”.

Despite arguments that the NHI will not fall prey to corruption, these kinds of provisions will only increase the possibility of abuse, political deal-making and favouring people in and outside government with the necessary connections. Over the past 10 years South Africans have seen precisely what happens when the state and economy become intimately intertwined, and the devastating effects of state capture (and looting even during the Covid-19 pandemic) have been felt most keenly by the most vulnerable citizens.

NHI will add layer upon layer of bureaucracy on to public health care — making it more inefficient and opening further avenues for corruption while failing to tackle the serious problems in this sector.

See the collapse of public health systems in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng, and the NHI does not go any way towards actually fixing the public sector. The system will also subject the private sector to even more of the stifling red tape of the state, and does not take seriously the recommendations of the health market inquiry.

It should not matter who the minister of health happens to be; that person should never possess the kind of discretionary powers the NHI will grant.

Chris Hattingh

Free Market Foundation

OPINION

en-za

2021-06-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://timesmedia2.pressreader.com/article/281771337139328

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