The argument by the chairperson of Parliament’s Health Committee, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, that citizens should not fear the unknowns of the National Health Insurance is disturbing. Government’s virtual absence of technical policy analysis since NHI became official policy is exactly that type of unknown that is grounds for great alarm.
The moral question facing South Africans is: how can 16% of the population bask in the luxury of private healthcare, when 84% are subjected to crumbs? Economists across the world advocate cross-subsidisation, where the rich support the poor to improve their quality of life. Why is this a scary thought in South Africa?
The powers, privileges and consequence management set out in typical section 3A entities are no different to what is being proposed in the NHI Bill.
National Health Insurance (NHI) can be divisive, not just because of what it proposes to do but because of how it is often sold as an all-or-nothing issue – either you buy into NHI completely, or you want things to stay essentially the same.
Tech is proving itself in the medical sector worldwide. What can it do for South African clinics and patients?
THE future of the country’s health system and the National Health Insurance (NHI) now rests in the hands of a doctor who grew up in Mobeni Heights.
While much remains unclear about the rationale for, and function of, the Office of Health Products Procurement(OHPP), the NHI Bill nevertheless gives us some important pointers.
As the National Portfolio Committee on Health embarks on its public hearing process on the NHI, due to start tomorrow (25 October) in Mpumalanga, Parliament has confirmed that more than 100 000 written submissions on the Bill have already been received. This is more than a month before the extended deadline for submissions expires on the 29th of November.
These are the words of Dr Nicholas Crisp, the man who has been appointed to one of the most challenging positions in the country’s healthcare system – that of developing and implementing the organisational capacity for the administration and operations of National Health Insurance (NHI)
Some key questions about NHI have crystallised in recent months. Spotlight put 12 of these questions to Nicholas Crisp, head of government’s NHI office.