The ANC’s precipitous fall in support during last week’s general election provides an important opportunity to reconsider the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act.
Whether the ANC forms a new government with centrist parties such as the DA and IFP, makes a deal with the Marxist EFF and the MKP, or finds some way to bring them all into the tent, it is going to have to find common ground with its political rivals on NHI.
That isn’t going to be easy, considering the history of the bill’s passage through parliament: not only did the DA roundly reject the NHI bill when it was put to the vote in the National Assembly, but so too did the EFF, IFP and Freedom Front Plus. Only the smallest parties such as GOOD, Al Jama-ah and the National Freedom Party supported the ANC majority in voting it through, and none of them are kingmakers this time around.
It might be tempting for opposition parties to pressure the ANC to jettison the entire thing. But given the dire state of the public health system and the soaring cost of private healthcare, there may be merit in retaining parts of the NHI Act that are feasible and excising the rest.
One option would be to repeal its most troublesome sections, such as the provisions that ban medical schemes from covering benefits offered by NHI, and those that diminish the role of provincial health departments.
Doing so would not only extinguish much of the planned litigation against the act, but equally importantly signal a willingness to compromise and forge a working relationship with the nation’s best interests at heart.
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