By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Assembly (NA) has passed the controversial National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill paving the way for “universal healthcare” in South Africa.
On Tuesday, 205 MPs voted in favour of the NHI Bill while 125 voted against it.
All 200 ANC MPs voted in favour of the Bill. The DA’s 71 MPs voted against the Bill. None of the lawmakers abstained from voting.
The EFF, IFP, Freedom Front Plus, ACDP, and ATM also voted against the bill but there were still not enough votes from the opposition to shoot it down.
GOOD party, NFP, AIC and PAC were amongst the opposition parties that voted with the ANC in support of the bill.
The controversial bill has been opposed by various civil society organisations and policy institutes, including the South African Institute of Race Relations, which has continuously warned the government against the implementation of the bill.
But Health Minister Joe Phaahla defended the bill, saying it seeks to stop the health gap between public and private health services.
Phaahla called on MPs to create the legal framework and foundation for the noble aims embodied in the Freedom Charter and our Constitution.
“This is one of the most revolutionary pieces of legislation presented to this House since the dawn of democracy,” he said.
The bill, which was introduced in Parliament in August 2019, seeks to realise universal health coverage for all, which means that every South African will have a right to access comprehensive healthcare services, free of charge, at accredited health facilities, such as clinics, hospitals and private health practitioners.
“What we have not been so successful over is the avoidance of replacement of race-based differentiation of access and quality by a class-based differentiation. As inequality has been growing in our country even cutting across race, access to quality health services has been a casualty with those who have private medical insurance consuming 51% of the national spending while constituting only 16% of the population, while 84% depend on 49% resources from the fiscus and services provided by public health system only.
According to the bill, the NHI fund will cover South Africans of all races, rich or poor, as well as legal, long-term residents. There will be one pool of healthcare funding for private and public healthcare providers alike.
The bill seeks to “create mechanisms for the equitable, effective and efficient utilisation of the fund’s resources to meet users’ health needs”.
The minister acknowledged that a lot of work lies ahead to fix the public health care system.
“We accept that the NHI will not be the silver bullet that will fix all our health problems but it is the necessary foundation to build on for a progressive improvement of access with quality and equity. We must work together to build our own national health service.
“We must address the genuine fears of those who have access to private services where there are no queues, no waiting times, and no shortage of commodities except in a disaster like Covid-19 where even private hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen at some stage,” added Phaahla.
The Bill will be sent to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for concurrence.
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of Parliament.