NHI paper due by year's end

The White Paper on National Health Insurance (NHI) will be finalised and presented to the Cabinet before the end of the year, according to Vishal Brijlal, a health economist who heads one of the NHI work streams set up by the Department of Health to consider the future role of medical schemes.

Brijlal said the White Paper would include the final package of benefits the new healthcare system would provide South Africans, as well as what it would cost the state to provide that package. Brijlal told the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) conference that the draft White Paper published by the Department of Health for comment late last year was a policy document, and not a technical document, that outlined how the NHI policy would be implemented. BHF members were warned against making misleading statements about funding and fund gaps arising from the policy aimed at making quality health care available to all.

The draft White Paper's references to projections that spending on NHI would, based on the Green Paper estimates from 2010, reach R256-billion by 2025. This should not be misinterpreted as the actual amount that NHI would cost, because the policy document did not define the final package of benefits, which would determine the cost, Brijlal said.

He said the final White Paper would be accompanied by a paper outlining the milestones that would have to be reached during the transition in order to implement NHI. Final policy options for the White Paper will be finalised and presented to the Cabinet. The cabinet will release the paper once it has decided which policy options to adopt. Brijlal said the Department of Health had received more than 200 comments on the draft paper before the extended deadline for comment closed in May.

Business Report, 22 July 2016