Johannesburg - The EFF says the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill is similar to National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS)-style funding to resolve the crisis of dilapidated health care that plagues the country.
In a statement, the party said the passing of the bill was a catastrophic development in the midst of the ongoing collapse of the public health sector.
The EFF says thatit has, on countless occasions, highlighted problematic clauses within the bill and its fundamental position on the development of a funding pool.
"The NHI Bill will see the funding of all our health needs being centralised, suppliers (general practitioners, private hospitals, and public hospitals) catering to the needs of our people, and the payment of services being administered from the national polling fund of the NHI," read the party statement.
It said that the NHI was another avenue for the state to surrender critical services to the private sector, whose sole priority was to accumulate profit.
"It will have no material impact on the lives of those who suffer the inhumanity of collapsing public health care and will only further entrench the existing inequalities between private and public health-care institutions," added the statement.
Civil society organisations, including the civil rights organisation AfriForum, strongly condemn Parliament’s decision to accept the new bill. The organisation has also already assembled a team of the country’s top legal experts, economists, and medical experts to oppose the legislation at all possible levels.
According to AfriForum, NHI is just one more of the castles in the sky that the government has built with the aim of campaigning for votes in light of next year’s national election.
AfriForum spokesperson Jacques Broodryk says that people thought load shedding was bad, but this policy woulf lead to health-care shedding.
"Besides, there is no way the already overburdened taxpayer is going to be able to finance the state’s new pipe dream. Do you think for one moment that the members of Parliament who passed the legislation use government hospitals when they are sick? No, they use top private hospitals or even travel abroad for medical treatment," said Broodryk.
The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) spokesperson for health, Philip van Staden, says the party will oppose this legislation in every way possible, and is calling on all right-minded people to support the party in this endeavour.
"It is disappointing that President Cyril Ramaphosa is apparently determined to write the NHI into the law book, even though there is abundant evidence of a large-scale decline in state hospitals.
"So, it is clear that the president is turning a blind eye and a wilfully deaf ear to the reality of the situation. Apart from the unrealistic promise of free health care for every South African in exchange for votes, there is also the prospect of the supposed pot of gold for the ANC at the end of the NHI rainbow.
"What is particularly alarming is that this bill, like the Covid-19 state of disaster, makes no provision for any parliamentary oversight to be exercised over the NHI fund," said Van Staden.
The Star