This week I stumbled upon a speech by one of the ANC members promising free healthcare via the new National Health Insurance Fund. He stated that anyone can be treated via the State run hospitals and the private hospitals and the costs will be paid for by he Government. This obviously received a warm round of applause but like before they are making promises they cannot deliver.
4 years ago the election promise was to eradicate load shedding and we know how that has turned out and even though we have not experienced load shedding for the last 6 weeks it will be back after the 29th May which is the election day. The Government is no nearer to solving this because they actually do not want to fix this problem because they are all making their corruption money from the failed systems.
Imagine a corrupt Government controlling a massive health budget as we know how that will end. Last year the health budget was R233 Billion and considering anyone who can afford it is on Private Medical schemes because quite honestly I would not step foot in a Government hospital. The difference is obvious when you have been into a private vs State run hospital and why private medical is a must have and not something you would ever contemplate not having. If I could not afford private medical let us just say I would not be living in this country because it is that important.
The new promised national Health Insurance will cost the country R900 Billion per year allowing every South African around R740 medical cover. This equates to $37 or there about and is woefully inadequate. To pay for this taxes would need to increase by a further 31% to make up the shortfall in the budget. As a family we pay 14 x that yearly budget monthly for private health care so how is R740 per person per year going to work?
As you can clearly see the numbers do not stack up or come even close to being remotely workable and is a disaster looming if implemented. The Government wants it because they need to keep their voters by promising them something because they have nothing else to offer. Also having nearly R1 Trillion which can be siphoned and diluted by their greedy paws is to tempting and it will be a total disaster placing every patient at risk.
This will not benefit the private medical aid customers who will be provided with certain operations free of charge covered by he Government funds. I can see Private Medical Schemes rising in price yet again to cover the shortfall they will be losing and there will be a next level up created because the one benefit you have is no waiting times.
One can imagine if he masses are allowed into the private hospitals then the no waiting time we experience currently will vanish over night. This is why the fees will have to increase to keep the masses out and will be counter productive for everyone.
In The UK you have both private and the NHS and I was on private due to a benefit from work plus there is no waiting time. When I had my knee operations I was seen by the specialist and was operated on the very next day and with the NHS that would have been months apart. I just don't see a way of how you can combine them realistically because financially it just does not work.
