‘Govt’s NHI will kill the private health sector’, warns DA

The DA, which strongly opposes the government’s National Health Insurance (NHI) plan, believes it can provide universal health care without pooling private and public funds as well as creating another state-owned enterprise (SOE).

“The global trend in public health is to move toward providing universal health care. It is crucial that South Africa follows suit. With an accumulative budget of more than R222bn across all provincial departments and its entities, this is a possibility for our country, but the devil is in the detail,” said DA MP and spokesperson on health Siviwe Gwarube in July.

Gwarube said South Africa’s current two-tier health care system was unsustainable and had over the past two-and-a-half decades created an environment of insiders and outsiders – with 16% of South Africans having health care coverage and over 80% “relying on the crumbling public health system”.