South Africa is moving towards providing universal health coverage through the development of a National Health Insurance (NHI) as a means of addressing the inequalities and the highly fragmented health system of the past (Barron & Padarath, 2017). The NHI’s objective is to provide all South Africans (as well as legal residents) quality healthcare regardless of whether they’re employed and able to contribute monetarily to the fund (DOH, 2019). South Africans will access healthcare via a defined package of comprehensive healthcare services (DOH, 2019), and they will be funded largely via general taxation and monthly employee contributions (said to be lower than existing medical aid contributions) for higher-income earners. Employees will still retain the right to belong to their own medical aid schemes; however, they will not have the option to opt out of NHI contributions (DOH, 2017). Employers will support the fund-contribution process in two ways, (1) by ensuring their employees’ contributions are collected and submitted; and (2) by matching their employee’s contribution to the NHI (DOH, 2017). The White paper on the National Health Insurance published in December 2015 proposed an implementation process that will span across 14 years (2012-2026) (Barron & Padarath, 2017).

References:

Barron, P., & Padarath, A. (2017). South African Health Review 2017. In Health Systems Trust. Available from: https://www.hst.org.za/publications/Pages/HST-South-African-Health-Review-2017.aspx

DOH. (2017). Understanding National Health Insurance. Department of Health.

DOH. (2019). National Health Insurance – NHI. Department of Health. http://www.health.gov.za/index.php/nhi