Tag: National Health Insurance (NHI)

Government intervention in the economy simply does not work. It is a mystery, then, why so many otherwise intelligent people keep calling for more of the same. After years of low growth (12 years now) concurrent with government fiscal deficits and various stimulus packages, we are now faced with retrenchments across the economy. The latest of which is Massmart announcing that it is considering retrenching 1,400 people.

Speaking in KwaZulu-Natal on New Year’s Day, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said that the National Health Insurance (NHI) will put private and public hospitals on par with each other. Indeed, rather than improving the quality of care on offer in the public sector, it’s more likely that, by effectively nationalising them, the NHI will reduce the quality of care at private facilities. 

Renowned French philosopher, Paul Virilio once said; “When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck.” How inevitable is this in technology today? Security professionals are having to work hard at putting in measures, best practices, mapping systems, lighthouses and beacons in order to reap the benefits of new innovations, all while managing potentially catastrophic risks.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says that all South Africans will be covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI) by 2025, but there is still little clarity as to how the NHI will be funded.

Finance minister Tito Mboweni’s new economic strategy paper is a refreshing, much needed breath of fresh air for an economy struggling for oxygen. The paper is replete with common sense proposals all aimed at achieving the economic growth South Africa desperately needs. We have been stumbling along a low-growth path of high taxes, kilometres of red-tape, wealth redistribution, and anti-individualism for far too long. If Mboweni’s paper can be taken as a true step in a new direction, a direction of more individual freedom, South Africa will see green shoots of recovery almost immediately.

Following the discussions about the NHI (National Health Insurance), I am struck by how little regard is given to self-ownership. To preclude the possibility of ownership by someone else, self-ownership is a necessity. Black Africans were enslaved in the Americas because their self-ownership was not recognised.

When seeking care from a hospital or doctor, patients will now be required to present their proof of registration with the National Health Insurance (NHI) Fund to access healthcare services. Registration can be refused. Never before have South Africans’ constitutional right to access to healthcare been so brazenly threatened by a power-hungry government. Civil society must resist the proposed NHI scheme with all its might.

The latest iteration of the NHI Bill has confirmed what South Africans have known for more than a decade: that taxes will need to rise to fund the government’s unworkable and unfeasible NHI scheme. During these dire economic times, the NHI tax will be the final nail in the coffin for cash-strapped consumers struggling to make ends meet.

It is an unmitigated moral tragedy that in the year of celebrating what would have been Mandela’s 101st birthday, the incumbent government has betrayed him on an issue about which that he felt strongly. This is the resolution by parliament to make it constitutionally permissible to expropriate land without compensation (EWC). Despite the rhetoric to the contrary, the resolution does not exempt anyone, not any racial group or entity.

When in the grip of election fever, it becomes even more difficult than usual to decipher facts from the deluge of rhetoric and obfuscation proffered by politicians.