More money down bottomless NHI pit

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More alarm bells are ringing regarding the National Health Insurance (NHI) as government has indicated it wants to redirect tax credits for private medical scheme contributions to the NHI Fund.

This would channel an amount of approximately R34 billion to the NHI. Members of medical schemes will effectively be “penalised” for not being a burden for the state and paying for their own medical care.

Currently, medical scheme members can annually claim rebates from SARS for certain medical expenses.

The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) is convinced that this struggle to get the NHI Fund off the ground will not succeed, as the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health are yet to table a financing model detailing its exact costs.

In 2024, the latter refused to answer a question from the Freedom Front Plus in Parliament about the cost of the NHI.

At the moment, several cases against the legislation are being heard by the Constitutional Court and other courts. This includes the case against President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has to provide reasons for signing the legislation on the eve of the 2024 general elections.

In addition, the final ruling on the Certificate of Need case is also still pending. Until these cases have been finalised, the NHI Act cannot be enforced.  

Throwing billions of rand into the bottomless NHI pit has to stop.

In the 2023/24 financial year, R1,4 billion was spent on the NHI and in 2024/25, the National Treasury (NT) allocated R1,1 billion to the Department of Health which was specifically earmarked for the preparation and implementation of the NHI in South Africa.

This money could have been used for infrastructure upgrades, appointing doctors and nurses, and procuring medicine, beds, ambulances and medical equipment.

The Freedom Front Plus firmly maintains that the NHI will not improve the country's public healthcare.

If this type of action against members of private medical schemes continues, it will infringe on the constitutional right of 9 million South Africans who prefer to make use of private healthcare.

It would amount to a violation of their constitutional right to have access to proper healthcare, just as the poor public healthcare system currently violates the constitutional rights of 54 million South Africans.