With the ANC polling at a piddling 40-ish% ahead of make-or-break elections in a few weeks, Ramaphosa has deployed the nuclear option: He signed the controversial NHI bill into law yesterday.
As we’ve told you previously, this doesn’t change anything immediately, so to quote Health Minister Joe Phaahla, don’t cancel your medical aid just yet. Discovery CEO Adrian Gore said its implementation will likely be delayed for “decades.”
Trade union Solidarity and civil rights organisation AfriForum, both conservative Afrikaans groupings, have already threatened Ramaphosa with legal action, while the DA and organisations representing healthcare professionals and medical schemes are also readying their lawyers. Plus, there is the pesky matter of funding the R200 billion-plus bill. Gore notes this means either a 31% increase in personal income tax; a hike in the VAT rate from 15% to 21.5%; or a tenfold increase in payroll taxes. All these scenarios are basically impossible from an already overstretched tax base.
And… the ANC probably won’t even be in power to see it through.
But even if it never gets actioned, it has dealt a severe psychological blow to SA’s middle class, particularly doctors and specialists who are now threatening to emigrate.
To recap: The NHI aims to pool funds from taxpayers so all South Africans have access to quality and affordable healthcare, instead of just the 15% that currently have world-class private healthcare while the rest of the country is stuck with terrible public services. All this is rooted in apartheid policies, so the NHI is good in theory, but in practice, it’s a bit of a mess. 😓
Here’s what key stakeholders have said:
🔹 The South African Health Professionals Collaboration, representing more than 25,000 healthcare workers, says the bill is unworkable, and their inputs to improve it since the NHI was first mooted in 2011 have been ignored.
🔹 Business Day reports that critics say the current legislation is unconstitutional, unworkable, and leaves the NHI fund open to corruption.
🔹 BUSA CEO Cas Coovadia said the only explanation for rushing the bill into law in its current form was the upcoming national elections.
We have to agree with Coovadia. We said it before, and we’ll say it again: Making empty promises to a hungry, poor working class while also panicking the already strained middle class is an ANC speciality… one we can’t wait to see the back of.
