NHI will certainly make you sick

Just as one can sometimes sense an approaching storm by increasing gusts of wind so, too, can South Africans feel the approach of an election year by the sudden flurry of populist policy-making by the ruling party.

A week ago, the ANC unveiled a draft policy on water licences, which effectively means water will be allocated by means of race… no water licences will be given to any company which is not 75% black-owned, so reports say.

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But the Big Daddy of all vote-catching schemes, the National health Insurance (NHI), is being pushed through parliament in unseemly haste, perhaps so it can be declared “operational” ahead of next year’s general elections.

SA Medical Association (Sama) chair Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa has it spot-on when he says the NHI just passed by the National Assembly is being used for “electioneering” purposes.

While the idea of universal healthcare is attractive and there needs to be huge reform to the state-run health sector, many health experts have said the NHI, as currently configured, is not the way to do it.

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Ordinary people, but especially those currently paying a fortune for medical aid, could be faced with a completely new way of accessing healthcare. And they won’t like it.

Apart from having to pay a levy of a minimum of one percent of personal income tax and dealing with VAT rising to 16% – both of which are necessary to pay for the expensive scheme – those accessing private healthcare now will have their choices removed.

They may be forced to become a mere number in a vast pool of patients, allocated to random doctors by massive, expensive call centres, losing that important doctor-patient relationship.

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And they will wait for long periods to be seen. Critics say one thing is certain: NHI will make you sick.