NHI: MINISTER MOTSOALEDI CALLS FOR DISCUSSION ON POSSIBLE STICKING POINTS

NHI: MINISTER MOTSOALEDI CALLS FOR DISCUSSION ON POSSIBLE STICKING POINTS

• 11 July 2024
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

Newly appointed returning Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has urged fellow MPs and stakeholders to ‘discuss’ which areas of government plans for national health insurance (NHI) implementation still ‘need to be ironed out’. Delivering his 2024/25 budget vote speech, the Minister cautioned NHI critics against becoming ‘obstacles’ to addressing the longstanding need for ‘equitable’ healthcare financing. According to Motsoaledi, interventions intended to phase in universal access to quality healthcare began in South Africa almost a century ago.

Describing NHI as a ‘health financing system … meant to be an equaliser between the rich and the poor’, the Minister reminded MPs of their status as some of the ‘privileged few who receive costly private care at the expense of the poor’. As such – but nevertheless having been elected by ordinary South Africans to improve the quality of their lives – in Motsoaledi’s view MPs are duty bound to usher in the healthcare system changes so desperately needed and so long overdue. This despite the fact that, in doing so, they may well be required to ‘meddle’ with their ‘own comforts’.

Noting that his department is ‘already in Phase 2’ of the broader NHI implementation plan, the Minister assured the House that ‘the rest of the building blocks will easily fall into place’.

Passed by Parliament in June 2024, the NHI Bill is now waiting to be signed into law – a process expected to take place incrementally when the necessary funds become available, as SA Legal Academy has already reported.

• speech (the original link to this article malfunctioned and has been replaced) 
• NHI Bill
• SA Legal Academy report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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